Twist on Normal Again
by Nimue Tucker
Summary: Winner - Watching You Best Angst Award.! Book One of the Peacemaker Chronicles. This is a twist on Normal Again, incorporating the
1. Future Dimension

Title: Future Dimension(based on NA and the 'glowing" theory)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Pairing: S/B. Includes most characters  
  
Spoilers: S6. Anything up through Normal Again is fair game.  
  
Summary: This is going under the assumption that in Normal Again, Buffy  
  
wasjumping between dimensions. Two coexisting realities. Also, theory  
  
that every decision we make creates a different path for us, and maybe a shadow of ourselves follows that path.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to Joss  
  
Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN etc. Just playing with them.  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Another life.  
  
Buffy battled the waxy demon, but he was strong. Not to mention he had sort of a marzipan smell to him. Whatever he was, he was driving her crazy with all of his lurching and pawing. Why couldn't he be like a vamp: quick, strong, light on the feet, and easy to kill. She managed to corner him against a car in the alley when she heard what sounded like a tiny sword unsheathe and felt a sharp pain.  
  
*****  
  
"AHHHH!". Buffy was screaming a brutal, earth shattering scream. Pain was ripping through her. She felt as if she had been stabbed in the stomach. Willow was sitting on the bed behind her, chanting softly, her hands on Buffy's shoulders. Tara sat at the foot of the bed, rubbing Buffy's calf, soothingly trying to calm her.  
  
"Tara, " Buffy moaned. " What happened? Where I am? What is going on? Is everything OK?"  
  
"Everything is fine, Buffy," Tara answered quietly, still rubbing her calf.  
  
" I feel like ... I have never felt pain like this before, " Buffy screamed as pain shook her again, tearing her insides out.  
  
"You've never had a baby before, Buffy."  
  
"WHAT??" Buffy answered, her eyes widening with shock.  
  
*****  
  
Buffy was stumbling back towards home, dizzy and confused. She knew that the graveyard was the quickest way, but she wasn't sure that she could grapple anything that she happened to run into in that place. Still, she thought, steeling her resolve, 'I need to get home'. Buffy felt the fever rising and the sweat on her skin. Slowly, she turned onto the path into the cemetery.  
  
It wasn't long before she ran into trouble. It never was. As she passed the mausoleums, three younger vamps popped out from behind the stone walls. Did they actually think that surprised her, that this game of peek-a-boo with the slayer was scary? Slowly she straightened, focusing her mind on the vamps and began the dance.  
  
Two of them she dusted easily, but the third. Either the third was much stronger or she was much weaker for the other two. Blow after blow and the stupid vamp kept coming at her. The veil between the worlds was thinning. She doubled over, falling back against the cold stone wall. Then he was there, fighting the vamp. Buffy clutched her stomach, falling to the ground, as Spike finished off her attacker, rushing back towards her.  
  
*****  
  
"She alright in there? " Spike called into the bedroom, pounding on the door with his fist, a mixture of concern and annoyance in his voice. He needed to be with her.  
  
His question was answered with a primal scream from Buffy. The sound of her pain was making him lose his mind. "That's it, I'm coming in..." he said,reaching for the knob. Xander grabbed his hand and Dawn latched onto his arm to stop him.  
  
"Spike, no" Xander said.  
  
" And why not? I need to do something."  
  
" I think you have done quite enough already," Xander retorted. Somewhere, Xander was still jealous that now it was real. Now it was Spike and Buffy that were connected always. Not him. Spike.  
  
"And tell me again why in bloody hell I should listen to you?" Spike hissed, almost changing to his game face. He would do anything to get in there, anything to help her.  
  
Buffy began screaming again. Spike could hear Willow chanting louder,  
  
faster. He could not bare this. His hand began to turn the knob.  
  
A tug on his sleeve brought him back. He turned to look at Dawn's worn and frightened little face. " You know Willow said that she has to protect her. That this... baby.. shouldn't... be... at all. And to bring it into the world might kill her. Willow said that she can make it so both of them live, but we cannot break the circle. If we do, one of them, or both, die."  
  
Spike softened, leaning back against the door. Hearing Buffy screaming, Willow chanting, Tara cooing softly. He wanted to be with her. This was going to drive him mad.  
  
"Why don't you take me downstairs and help me... rustle up some food." Dawn said, tears in her eyes. Her sister's screaming was killing her too. Spike knew Dawn wasn't hungry, but also knew one more minute of hearing Buffy in so much pain and not being able to help her, might do them both in.  
  
"Right then, Nib, " he said, taking her hand. "Off we go."  
  
*****  
  
"Buffy," Spike said, crouching down on the ground next to her. "You  
  
alright?'.  
  
"Spike?" she said, her eyes watering, staring at him, terrified and  
  
overjoyed to see him. "Spike, something is very wrong".  
  
" I can see that," he said, brushing sweaty hairs from her forehead. "  
  
You're burning up, girl, " he said as his fingers touched her hot forehead.  
  
"What's going on?" It was that annoyance of a wanna be man. Xanders voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard to Spike. He turned only to see Xander and Willow standing behind him. "What did you do to her this time?"  
  
"Buffy?" Willow said, rushing to her side. Spike stood to face Xander.  
  
"Bugger off, " Spike hissed.  
  
"Or what? Xander said, " You'll make spooky faces at me?"  
  
"Guys," Willow's timid voice called up. Xander and Spike both turned.  
  
Spike dropped back to Buffy's side. " We need to get her home. Something is really wrong".  
  
Spike's hand was holding Buffy's without even knowing it. His crystal eyes were buried deep in hers and he felt her fear, her pain, her confusion. He leaned to pick her up. " Let's get you back to the crypt".  
  
"We got it, " Xander interrupted, pushing Spike aside. He and Willow pulled Buffy to her feet and began to move towards the Summers house. "She's our friend, we'll take care of her".  
  
"Put ice on the back of her neck," Spike said as they walked away, "She  
  
likes it".  
  
*****  
  
Buffy clutched the bedsheets with white knuckles, screaming. The pain was almost constant now, tearing at her. She wanted him with her. But Willow said that it would put them all in danger. The magic was dancing around them. A white circle of little sparkling lights dancing around the bed. Supposed to keep them safe. Tara was speaking quietly to Buffy, but all she could feel was pain.  
  
Suddenly, Buffy felt it all starting. Her eyes widened in fear. "Where's Spike?" she panted to Tara. She did not even know how she knew he was the father. This was a different place. What else had she done differently? But she knew. "Shouldn't he be here?" she said as a huge surge came over her and she felt the baby moving.  
  
"I know, Buffy." Tara whispered, trying not to alarm her. She could see the baby now. Willow chanted loudly, lost in her protection spell. "But this baby, Buffy. This baby is a miracle. This.... Buffy, we have to protect her. We don't know.. no one has ever delivered a child like this. We have no idea what will happen. We are just trying to protect..."  
  
Tara's words were interrupted by a scream and Buffy's entire body shuddering and sliding toward her. And then a scream of a different sort. Buffy fell back to the bed, and Willow collapsed behind her.  
  
*****  
  
"Buffy?" Willow said, sitting next to her on the bed. "You OK in there?" she said cheerfully.  
  
Buffy looked around the room, confused. It was daytime. No sparkly lights swirling around her bed. No Tara. Just Willow looking fresh and motherly.  
  
"Yeah, " Buffy said, sitting up against her pillows.  
  
" You've been pretty sick, " Willow said, handing her some tea. "Still are. Got everyone in a little uproar. Dawn's all cry-y and Spike and Xander and fighting like expectant fathers."  
  
Buffy went completely rigid, terror gripping her. "Expectant fathers?"  
  
What world was this??  
  
" You know, all pacing like and argumentative. Nothing to worry about. You have just been really sick. Most of the time, you are asleep. You just lay there and moan, curled on your side. I thought Spike was going to lose his mind listening to you. I think he was crying..."  
  
" Will, I need to tell you something, " Buffy began, knowing that what she was about to say was going to take Willow completely off guard. And she began to recount the story of the other world, the other life. Every detail. Willow listened intently, the look on her face half horror, half sweetness. And something clicked in Willow. Something told her there was more to this than she knew.  
  
Spike walked into the room, standing next to her chest of drawers, dodging sunbeams. Willow got up and left quietly. " See you are awake then, Slayer." he said, a look of relief on his face.  
  
Buffy's fear welled into anger. " You shouldn't be here. You are not part of my life."  
  
First it was hurt, then anger that crossed his face. She heard a tumble of words from him. About how she had a nasty case of martyrdom. About how she needed to make up her mind. How she needed to tell the rest of them about her or he would...  
  
*****  
  
"Spike?". He looked up from the magazine he had been toying with. Dawn was napping with her head on his lap. His arm was draped over her as he had been comforting her when she finally fell asleep.  
  
Tara was standing at the foot of the stairs. He rose, walking towards her as Dawn slept quietly on the couch. "Is she?' he whispered, noticed that her screaming had stopped. He was terrified she had not made it. That neither of them had made it.  
  
Tara reached out to him, touched his hand. He could feel the tears coming. They were dead. He knew they were. She smiled softly at him, starting up the steps. "It's a girl, " she said pulling him up towards the room.  
  
Xander was still sitting outside, pressed against the wall. Tara had not thought it was right to let anyone else in before Spike. Xander was glaring at the two of them, but let Spike pass without incident.  
  
"Tara, wait." Spike said just before they entered. She turned back toward him. " Does she even want... to see me?"  
  
Tara smiled reassuringly, "She has been asking for you."  
  
Spike stepped into the moonlit room. She was lying there, so tiny and weak. Willow was sitting on a chair next to the bed, stroking the top of the child's head as Buffy held her in her arms. It was surreal to Spike. This was never supposed to happen. And he should not be so moved by it. But for whatever reason, he thought he would break down into sobs. The part of him that was human had made this. And all of him would love and protect them.  
  
Willow got up from the chair, and took Tara's hand. As they left, Spike turned to them. "Thank you, " he said, at an unusual loss for words. Both women smiled softly and left the room.  
  
He sat next to her on the bed. She did not talk, but she looked at him  
  
softly. No more anger, no more confusion. She had found her reason to  
  
live. He rested his hand on her arm, stroking it gently, staring down at her child. Their child. The tiny blue eyed girl in her arms that fought everything to be here. Just like her parents. Fighters.  
  
Buffy's eyes were exhausted and teary. He touched her face with his hand and she closed her eyes, drinking him in. She handed the baby to him and watched him take her so gently, so carefully. Spike stared at that child with the same love with which he looked at Buffy. He was no longer a monster. He had not been for a very long time.  
  
"You did well, Pet", he said, staring at the perfect child. He could hardly fight back his own emotion. Buffy watched him closely. "What are you going to call her?"  
  
She looked at him for a moment. "What was your mother's name, William?"  
  
He looked at her, his head cocked, amazed at what she was thinking. His face was so soft and sweet that she thought her heart might burst. "Emma, " he said swallowing hard.  
  
"Emma Joyce, " Buffy said, touching his arm. He broke down, a century of emotion escaping. He laid down next to her, the baby resting between them, and buried his face in her hair.  
  
*******  
  
"Buffy? Buffy?". She could hear him in her head. She opened her heavy eyes and stared up Spike was sitting next to her on the bed, his face wracked with concern.  
  
"Spike?" she said, snapping too. She felt the fog lifting completely. But part of her wanted to go back to sleep. Back to the other place. He saw her drifting out again.  
  
"Stay with me, love, " he said shaking her. "Willow gave you some medicine and you should be right as rain soon."  
  
"Spike.. I had the weirdest dream..."  
  
"That's just it, Pet. Willow has it all sussed out. You were not dreaming. The venom in that demon made you jump realities. Go from here to another plane. Blurred the lines in the whole cosmic continuum and all that buggery."  
  
"Actually, " said Willow's voice from the doorway. "That is not quite right, " she said with a strained look on her face. Spike turned to face Willow. Buffy pushed herself upright in the bed. Willow looked at them both, stumbling over what to say.  
  
"What now, Red?" Spike said, frustrated.  
  
"Well, I do not think that the venom made you jump to a different *place* in the dimensions, " Willow continued, " I think it jumped you to a different *time*".  
  
"Speak English, Willow. Having a hard day, " Buffy retorted, starting to get her fire back.  
  
Willow's nose crinkled. She wasn't sure how to say this. If she had not done the tests herself, she would not have believed it. " I think, Buffy, it jumped you to the future."  
  
Buffy's face was complete shock. Her eyes as wide as saucers. Her heart beating hard in her chest. "That is not right, Willow. That cannot be right. How did you figure that all out?"  
  
Willow and Buffy exchanged looks. Confused, shocked, terrified looks.  
  
Spike watched the two girls knowing that there was something unsaid.  
  
Knowing there was something he was missing.  
  
"Buffy," Willow started, staring at Spike.  
  
" Will, say what you have to say, " Buffy said without thinking. She did not realize what she had said until it was too late.  
  
"Buffy, you're pregnant.".  
  
Spike stared at Buffy a moment in utter shock. Willow backed slowly out of the room. 


	2. Anything is possible

Title: Anything is possible  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: the usual, all characters belong to JW, ME, etc..  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Author Note: I had written the big time fluff piece Twist on NA/glowing  
  
theory and got a LOT of feedback (thanks ya'll). Several people asked me  
  
to go on with the storyline. This picks up from Willow telling Buffy, in  
  
front of Spike, that she had not gone to an alternate dimension but had  
  
jumped to the future. And that Buffy really was pregnant. So, here  
  
goes.  
  
  
  
Anything is Possible in the Hellmouth.  
  
Buffy sat, still tucked in her bed, her head reeling, the fog still  
  
lifting from all of the dimension jumping or time travel or dreaming or  
  
*whatever* it was that she had done. It was preventing the truth of the  
  
matter from creeping in.  
  
Spike sat next to her, staring at her, somewhere between shock, fear,  
  
amazement and happiness. He swallowed hard, shaking his head as if some  
  
nasty little thought had crept in and he was trying to violently knock it  
  
out.  
  
"She's not right, you know, " Buffy said defiantly, crossing her arms over  
  
her chest and pulling the covers up under her arms.  
  
"Couldn't be, " he commented. Then that nasty little thought bubbled back  
  
to the surface. The one thing he did not think he could face.  
  
"Unless...., " he continued.  
  
"Unless what, Spike?" Buffy questioned, frustration in her voice.  
  
"Buffy," he began, tearing his gaze away from her, his face softening,  
  
sadness creeping into his voice. She could not help but feel for him for  
  
just a moment. Until the words came off of his lips, " Have  
  
you....been... with someone...else...human...I mean... recently..., " he  
  
stuttered. Spike was sorry he ever asked before the words stumbled out of  
  
his mouth, but he knew he had to ask her. His body tensed, steeling  
  
himself for the answer or the onslaught of flying fists that was to come.  
  
Immediately, his words stung her. *He* was the monster, the evil doer,  
  
and he thought that little of her? Then anger washed over her. She  
  
jumped out of bed, wearing only a tank top and underwear, storming off  
  
toward her dresser. Even angry at him, she could not stop thinking how  
  
beautiful she could look. She began tearing through drawers, searching  
  
for clothes.  
  
"Buffy, " Spike pleaded, that familiar 'please don't hate me' tone in his  
  
voice, "Buffy, you know I had to..."  
  
"No, Spike," she barked cutting him off at the knees with just her words.  
  
She pulled on sweatpants, hopping into them quickly, sharply. Everything  
  
was so sharp. "You didn't." Buffy slammed the drawer shut so hard that  
  
the dressed fell back into the wall.  
  
"We both know," Spike was trying so hard to stay calm in the midst of her  
  
tempest, "that this is .... not possible... for me to father a child, " he  
  
continued, a hint of regret creeping into his tone, "I know... I... I...  
  
didn't have that ....opportunity.. when I was human. And now, well, I am  
  
dead Buffy."  
  
"Thanks for the information. I had missed that, " Buffy said, again,  
  
hearing only what she wanted. She was storming around the room, throwing  
  
on a t-shirt, lacing up her shoes, a beautiful storm of rage and anger and  
  
hurt.  
  
"Damn it, Slayer, do you even see where I am coming from?"  
  
She stopped, glaring at him, her eyes on fire. He could barely look at  
  
them.  
  
"Spike, " she began coldly, flatly, "Not that I owe you *any* explanation  
  
in *any* world. But just so I am on the record with this, I am *not* a  
  
whore..."  
  
"I never... I did not mean, " he stuttered, floored by what she thought he  
  
said. Devastated that he had made her feel that way.  
  
"Shut up," she screamed, tears burning her eyes, " Don't you ever shut  
  
up!?". He sat silently, trying to look at her, trying to swallow what he  
  
had done. But he had to ask, didn't he? His head cocked and her pain was  
  
all over his face. He wanted to say something, anything, take it back,  
  
but he was silent.  
  
"For whatever reason, I *couldn't* have been with anyone else since...  
  
this whole freak show started, " she snapped, trying to hurt him with her  
  
words.  
  
"Buffy," he whispered so softly, coming toward her, wanting to make her  
  
stop... hurting. She swung at him hard. It was her first and only line  
  
of defense. She landed the punch solidly on his jaw, then another to his  
  
nose and he could feel the blood trickle slowly to his lips. As she took  
  
her third swing, he grabbed her wrist with lightening quickness. She  
  
reeled back, her eyes fading quickly and he realized she was drifting out  
  
again. The venom, the antidote, or.. something... was making her so  
  
disoriented.  
  
"Hold on, then, Pet, " he said catching her and pulling her back down to  
  
the edge of the bed. She plopped down, dazed, upset, tears beginning to  
  
spill from her eyes.  
  
"Spike, " she began, " I do not know what you think of me..."  
  
"I never meant that.."  
  
"Please," she whispered almost desperately, "let me finish." He nodded  
  
his head for her to go on. "I don't know what you think of me, but I  
  
never... I couldn't, " she was choking on the words, "I came to you  
  
because I wanted *you*. Not anyone else."  
  
The words broke his heart and mended it all at once. It wasn't an  
  
admission of undying love, but he knew that he, Spike, the evil monster,  
  
would never hear that from her. Still, he would take it. It was what she  
  
had to offer.  
  
Spike put his arm around her, pulling him to her. She leaned her head on  
  
his shoulder, the tears running down her face in silvery rivers. He hated  
  
to see her like this. He had always hated it. Softly he rubbed her  
  
shoulder, letting his cheek rest in her soft hair. Vampires did not have  
  
a lot of experience in comforting the living, but he had always had a way  
  
of making her feel.  
  
"I believe you, Pet, " he whispered, his words blowing tendrils of her  
  
hair across her forehead.  
  
"Willow is just wrong, " Buffy pouted, knowing, somewhere, she wasn't.  
  
"No worries, " Spike said softly, " We'll sort it all out."  
  
*****  
  
Willow came into Buffy's bedroom timidly after Spike had to almost drag  
  
her from her room. She stood there in the doorway, trembling. Buffy  
  
nodded at Spike and, like a willing servant to his mistress, he left.  
  
"Willow, " Buffy began from her perch on the edge of the bed, "You are  
  
wrong about this, all of it... It was just a dream, " she said, shaking  
  
her head, tears still stinging her cheeks.  
  
Willow softened, coming closer, kneeling down on the floor in front of  
  
her. Softly, Willow took Buffy's hands into her own. She thought for a  
  
moment, sizing up what to say. Trying to find the words.  
  
"When you told me about your dreams, " Willow began, "some little  
  
witchy-itch inside of me said that there was something going on. So,  
  
while you were sleeping, and I was coming in anyway to give you the  
  
antidote, I took your blood, " she confessed.  
  
For some strange reason, Buffy felt compelled to say "With Spike here?"  
  
"No, " Willow backpedaled, " just us." A compassionate smile spread  
  
softly on her lips.  
  
"Then what?" Buffy asked, not sure she wanted to know.  
  
"I took it to the school and had it run and then ran it once myself. That  
  
is kinda when I found out." Willow answered, her shoulders shrugging.  
  
"Well, it was wrong."  
  
"The blood was tested three times, Buffy. It isn't wrong."  
  
"It *can't* be right," Buffy gushed, beginning to sob again.  
  
"Because you don't want it to be, or because Spike is a vampire?" Willow  
  
asked, bluntly.  
  
Buffy stared at her in shock. "What do you mean, Will?"  
  
"I'm just asking..." she began, compassion and fear mixing in her eyes, "  
  
If you are upset because you do not want a baby, or if you are upset only  
  
because it is Spike's."  
  
"What the hell?" Buffy snapped, " What is this, Buffy is gum on the bottom  
  
of the shoe night?" her anger ruling her.  
  
"You need to ask yourself why you are so upset, " Willow said frankly.  
  
"Because, " she said beginning to pace again, " I cannot be pregnant with  
  
the child of the undead." As the absurdity of the words hit her, she felt  
  
as if she had entered into some strangely dark sci fi movie.  
  
"Well," Willow answered, "You are. So now what?"  
  
"What do you mean, now what?"  
  
"Buffy, we are on the hellmouth. The slayer is sleeping with a vampire,  
  
and we all know anything is possible..."  
  
"This isn't!" Buffy snapped.  
  
"It is, " Willow retorted, " and you are."  
  
"Have you told anyone?" Buffy asked tentatively.  
  
"Tara, " Willow confessed, "She kind of figured it out on her own." Buffy  
  
thought for a second and decided that she needed to pick her battles.  
  
"No one can ever know."  
  
"They are going to figure it out, Buffy. I hear people get... bigger...  
  
when they have babies." Willow said, trying to be practical.  
  
"They cannot *ever* know, " Buffy said, her teeth clenched, the tears  
  
streaming again.  
  
Suddenly, it occurred to Willow what Buffy was thinking, what she was  
  
getting at, what she was actually considering doing.  
  
"Buffy," Willow whispered, " You can't... you aren't.. thinking of, "  
  
Willow choked. Buffy was shaking, sobbing, pacing. "You can't just ...  
  
slay it."  
  
"It *is* a vampire's child, " Buffy hissed in response.  
  
"And yours, " Willow answered, anger creeping into her voice, "Not to  
  
mention that it may be your only chance. His too. So, if you do that..."  
  
"Then what?" Buffy said like an insolent 5 year old.  
  
Willow could not put her anger into words. A vase exploded on the vanity  
  
behind them. Willow's eyes were raging, not black, just so angry. So  
  
upset. Her jaw was set and her hands clenched tightly in her lap. Buffy  
  
felt fear of her best friend. Fear of herself.  
  
"Will, " Buffy said, trying to be calm, sitting down next to Willow.  
  
"No," Willow responded angrily. "Is there any reason, any at all, that you  
  
have to give me other than the whole  
  
Spike-is-a-vampire-and-so-he-is-evil-and-bad speech as to why you do not  
  
want this baby?"  
  
Buffy was silent.  
  
"Because it seems to me, " Willow continued, "That Spike loves you. And  
  
whatever is human in him did everything it could to be with you. Whatever  
  
is left of William struggled all the way past demons scarier than we have  
  
*ever* seen to give you this gift. And you can't see past the packaging."  
  
"Will, I..." Buffy began, trying to explain, trying to think.  
  
"For this to happen, " Willow kept going, no longer even giving Buffy the  
  
time of day, "Someone had to change the rules. *I* call that a miracle.  
  
So, answer me this, Buffy.... do you hate life so much that you would give  
  
up on miracles?"  
  
Buffy was silent for a long moment. Finally, she timidly whispered, "No."  
  
"Then try this one... do you not want a child?" Willow asked, calming a  
  
bit  
  
.  
  
Again, silence. Then a little voice said, "One day, I figured..."  
  
"Well, no one gets everything just exactly when they want it," Willow  
  
retorted. "Last question... do you hate Spike *that* much that you would  
  
destroy his child?"  
  
Hate him? Buffy thought. Spike was her enemy, sworn and mortal. But he  
  
was also her confidant, her protector, he lover, her champion. "No," Buffy  
  
whispered. "Will, I love him."  
  
"I know, Buffy, " Willow said holding her. "I know." 


	3. The Thanks I Get

Title: The Thanks I Get  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating:PG  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to JW and company... just borrowing  
  
Summary: Part 3 of the fluff bit Twist on Normal Again, where Buffy finds that she has not jumped dimensions but time and finds herself with a little surprise....  
  
  
  
Buffy was washing her face, trying to regroup and make it downstairs for the first time in what felt like weeks. She could not remember when the demon stabbed her. Time had lost it's relevancy. Buffy had more on her mind then that.  
  
She came out of the bathroom and Willow grabbed her around the arm,  
  
smiling. "You ready to go face the music, mommy?"  
  
Buffy twitched, trying to get used to the term. Trying to wrap her mind around everything. "Will, if it is ok with you, I would rather wait to tell them. Just a little while. Just until I can .... deal..."  
  
"Sure, " Willow said, happily. "It can be our secret for now." They  
  
walked towards the door and Buffy stopped cold.  
  
"Giles..." she said trailing off. "How am I going to ..."  
  
"I will call Giles," Willow said, knowing that Buffy would not be able to,"I'll call him and explain everything, OK?"  
  
Buffy was silent. She was going to have to face this sometime. But she  
  
was thankful for Willow's help now. "thank you, " she said as they  
  
started down the stairs.  
  
*****  
  
"Ah, the queen of the wax monsters is alive!" Xander called from the couch as Buffy appeared at the bottom of the stairs.  
  
Shyly, Buffy smiled, waving at the assembled group parked in front of the TV in her den. Xander, Dawn, Tara, even Anya. But no sign of Spike.  
  
"Feeling better, Buffy?" Tara asked, knowingly. She always seemed to know what was going on in Buffy's head. In everyone's head.  
  
"Yeah, " Buffy said, walking toward the couch.  
  
"By the way, Buffy, what did you say to Captain Peroxide to get his  
  
panties in a bunch?" Xander asked, shoving a handful of popcorn into his  
  
mouth. "Not that I can say I was sad to see him go."  
  
"Wha..What do you mean?" Willow said, moving to the arm of the couch.  
  
"Spike came down when you and Willow were talking. Then he went back up  
  
because he thought he heard something... I dunno, but he came down the  
  
steps looking *really* ticked off and took off out the door, " Dawn said.  
  
"He left?" Buffy asked, confused.  
  
"He did kind of storm out of here, " Tara said. "What happened?"  
  
Buffy looked at Willow. Willow's eyes got wide with fear. Buffy's smile was gone. "He heard us, " Buffy whispered. " He heard me... saying.. about ..."  
  
"About the slaying..." Willow responded, her heart racing. "He thinks  
  
you're going to..."  
  
"Rude, much?" Dawn said as Willow and Buffy had their intense little  
  
conversation.  
  
"Stay here in case he comes back, " Buffy said, grabbing her jacket and  
  
heading for the door.  
  
" Will do, " Willow responded.  
  
" She should not be going anywhere by herself, in her condition." Xander  
  
said. Buffy and Willow turned to look at him. "Well, she has be sick for days."  
  
" I need to go, " Buffy responded, the door swinging shut behind her.  
  
*****  
  
Buffy raced down the street, as fast as her weakened legs could carry her. She felt weak, tired, her mind going as fast as her head, but she could not stop. Her muscles burned as she ran, her breath coming in short bursts. She had to find him. Panic set in.  
  
When she reached the graveyard, she slowed to a jog, trying to think of  
  
what she was going to say. He had overheard her talking about killing a child, killing his child, something that even in his baddest of times, he would never have done. Angelus might have. Druscilla. But not Spike.  
  
Her heart was racing as she came upon his crypt. Her hands touched the  
  
door, feeling the wood, trying to steady herself. How the hell did she  
  
get here? How did she get from being a spoiled child in LA to this place? And how did she explain away her behaviour? How could she explain this?  
  
Finally, she brought herself to knock. There was no answer. No voice.  
  
No open doors. Buffy knocked until her hand bled, but he never came. And she no longer had a right to burst through the gates into his world. She turned her back on the door and sunk down, sitting in front of it, sobbing, panicked, terrified. Not only was she going to have the baby of a dead man that she could not admit she loved, at least not to him, but she was going to do it alone. This time, she felt, 'I have gone too far.'.  
  
"What are *you* doing here?" . His voice was cold. Flat. She looked up at him with wet and foggy eyes. He was so handsome. But the look on his face was pure hatred.  
  
Spike, I ... we need to talk." she said pitifully. He was not falling  
  
for it this time. He honestly did not care if she hurt. What she was  
  
doing was far worse.  
  
"We have nothing left to say, " he replied in the same dead tone.  
  
"You heard us. Willow and me?" Buffy asked pitifully.  
  
"Yes," he admitted bluntly. " I came up because I heard you crying again. Thought I should be there for you. Really glad I did that." Spike finished sharply.  
  
"How much did you hear?"  
  
" I left about the time you admitted to wanting to kill your baby, " he  
  
responded. His coldness was something she had forgotten he was capable  
  
of. She was afraid of him. She was afriad that she finally pushed the  
  
one button that she could not take back. If it were not for the chip, she thought he might save her the trouble and kill them both.  
  
"I didn't mean..."she stuttered, wrapping her arms around her knees.  
  
"Don't lie to me, Slayer." he snapped, " You meant every word. You are so disgusted by me, so disgusted by the thought of sharing anything with me. So ... mortified by your own misguided, simplistic idea of good and evil, that you are willing not *only* to kill a child, but to kill your *own* child because of your hatred for me."  
  
Buffy was silent. She knew she deserved this. She knew he had every  
  
right to be angry. "I'm sorry, " Buffy said quietly. "I know that it  
  
does not change anything, but I'm sorry."  
  
Spike softened, just a tiny bit. Not enough to come closer. Not enough  
  
to forgive her, but his shoulders dropped and he stopped figeting.  
  
"I know, " she said, still crying softly, " That what I said was  
  
unforgiveable. I agree. And once Willow made me think... Spike, I  
  
couldn't do it. I can't. I won't." she whispered, burying her head in  
  
her knees.  
  
He sat down next to her, not touching her, but looking at her. This girl. This blasted girl who had turned him into her sodding love slave. And even after this, he could not hate her.  
  
"Buffy, I just cannot understand why you would even think about it." he  
  
said, trying not to bite her head off.  
  
"Because, " she said, " because I'm scared. Because I know nothing about any of this. Because the only thing I seem to know anymore is how to fight, how to kill, how to destroy." She whispered softly. " It does not make it right."  
  
"No, it doesn't" he said. "There is a big difference between killing a  
  
demon who is reeking havoc on the world and killing your own child. If  
  
you are that angry about all of this... if you are that disgusted with me for this... then kill me. " Spike said. "It is me you hate. Not your own baby."  
  
He opened his shirt, bearing his chest. Buffy could not bring herself to look at his face. Spike was willing to give up his own existence if it would make hers more bareable. Tears streamed down her face. He had done this all along. Gave himself over to her without even asking what was in it for him.  
  
Buffy reached toward him, pressing her palm to his chest, her fingers  
  
splayed along his skin. Why did it matter so much to her that he was  
  
different? What was so important that a little clock inside him ticked?  
  
She felt like if she stayed there long enough, she could almost feel it. And the soul. What was a soul? It was something she did not understand. Did his actions, his love for her, his willingness to be sent to hell at her whim, not constitute everything a soul would? She knew creatures that walked in the harsh light of day who's souls were uglier than Spike could ever be.  
  
Her hand moved to his faced and she forced herself to look at him. His  
  
cheek was wet. How many tears had he shed for her? "Spike?" she  
  
whispered.  
  
"What, love?" he answered quietly.  
  
"I am sorry, " Buffy said, swallowing her pride a moment. It was probably the most sincere thing she had ever said to him. He looked at her softly, drinking her in. "and I wanted to.... thank you." He was almost startled by her honesty.  
  
"For what, Buffy?"  
  
She chuckled nervously. " I dunno, " she joked, " for saving my life  
  
about a hundred times."  
  
"Well, I could say the same to you on that count," he retorted. "Hell, I suppose ever day you did not stake me, you saved me."  
  
She looked down at her knees, picking flecks of dust from her sweatpants. Buffy was never good at saying things. She just acted and reacted. She was built for battle, but craved feeling. Finally, she mustered the right words.  
  
"And I want to thank you, William, " she spoke softly, letting her words  
  
drip from her lips like nectar, "for the gift that you gave me. I know  
  
that because of...who...I am, I come with an expiration date. And I know that I will not have another chance at this. But you gave me one, and I am grateful. I want you to know, " she could feel the tears catch in her throat, but she had to get through this, " that when I die, forever this time, that I will feel... safe... leaving our child with a good man. Chip or no, you are a good man."  
  
He stared at her, dumbfounded. Did she say that? Was this another one of his pathetic fantasies? Did she know? Or was she giving him her trust based on faith alone. Spike could not speak for a long time. He was too... tangled in her.  
  
"I'd better get back," she said, rising to her feet, dusting off her  
  
bottom as she stood. "They are a little... overprotective.. at the  
  
moment."  
  
"They know?" he asked, rising up with her.  
  
"No, " she said, "Well, Will and Tara do, but not the rest..."  
  
He found himself all caught in her pretty eyes again. Lost in her. Found in her.  
  
"I'd better go, " she said again, touching his cheek. "Talk to you  
  
tomorrow?"  
  
"Do you want me to come round?" Spike asked sincerely. Everything was  
  
different now.  
  
"Don't you always?" she replied grinning and backing away. She turned on one heel and started back to the path out of the cemetary.  
  
"Buffy?" he called after her.  
  
"Yeah, " she replied, turning back.  
  
Did she know about the chip? Could she know? Now was not the time.  
  
"Thank you, " he said, staring at her tiny frame in the moonlight. She  
  
smiled a true, beautiful smile, and turned to go.  
  
  
  
To be contd.. 


	4. Into Africa

Title: Into Africa  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: pg-13  
  
Feedback: Please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to JW and co. just borrowing...  
  
Summary: Spike, after finding out Buffy is pregnant and coming to speak to him, wonders if she knows the secret about his chip...  
  
  
  
Spike wandered into his crypt, dazed, overwhelmed, tormented, happy. He  
  
tossed his duster over the chair and walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge, trying to comprehend what was happening.  
  
Buffy was pregnant. In all of his crusades, in all of his imagination,  
  
nothing could match this. No part of him *ever* expected this to happen. He thought his chances at a familial existence, or any part of one, ended in the alley with Druscilla. The pleasure and the horror of that moment had shaped him for a century. Buffy had changed it all in less than a year.  
  
Now he was a vampire, but he had no bloodlust. In one respect, he, Spike, had been neutered, first by the Initiative, then by his blinding love for Buffy. He chuckled at the thought that Spike had been neutered, but in that mental...castration...William had been allowed safe passage. And William fathered a child. "Bloody hell, " he muttered, laying back on the bed and grappling with that mind maze.  
  
But did she know? Did she know that Spike wasn't a little mental eunuch  
  
anymore? Did Buffy know about the chip?  
  
*****  
  
He remembered arriving there. Halfrek had given him one wish, one freebie for what she had done to him. So he had asked for free will. He wanted to be what he was before the chip, and make up his mind about his unlife, about her, on his own.  
  
He was dirty and torn when he arrived at the huts in the middle of bleeding nowhere. The demon had known him by scent. "Vampires reek of humanity, " he said that night, "Especially those that walk with the living."  
  
He remembered thinking the creature seemed as old as time. But he was  
  
strong and wise and something of a trickster. Spike did not trust him, but he did not come all of this way to play parlor games with the Sandman.  
  
"What is it you have come here for?" the demon had asked him, annoyed by  
  
Spike's impatience.  
  
"I want to be the demon I was before the sodding chip was drilled into my skull. I want to be who I was before.."  
  
"That is all?" the demon asked him.  
  
"What else did you think I came for? Grub sandwiches and a lovely snifter of cow blood?"  
  
"Are you prepared to meet the challenges?" the demon asked, brushing off  
  
Spike's insolence.  
  
"Plagues of locusts, raining fire, boiling seas....yeah, yeah... bring them on, " he had answered. He was so angry with her then. He just wanted this over with. He wanted to go back and show her what he was made of.  
  
"If you succeed, you will be returned to your condition before the chip, " the demon said cryptically. "Return to your lodging, remove all ornaments and your clothing, and wait."  
  
"I'm not here for a bleeding shag...." Spike retorted angrily.  
  
"Go, " the demon ordered. Spike rose from the fire and went back to the  
  
hut.  
  
When he got there, there were guards. Tribesmen standing in front of his hut. He ducked inside and he watched their shapes move to block the door. He had no bloody idea what the old demon had in store for him - pushing boulders up mountains, or running through the savanna or fighting off other demons, or killing.... Spike undressed as he thought, folding his clothes into the corner, shoving his ring into his pants pocket. He felt something crinkle as he shoved it in. Slowly, he slid his fingers in and felt the waxy paper. He had forgotten he had the picture of her in his pocket. Why?  
  
He hated her almost as much as he loved her. But she was the reason he was here. She would never love him as he was, so now she would have to either accept him, or kill him. Either way was better than this. He slid the photo back into his pocket.  
  
He sat down on the mat in the middle of the floor, naked and alone. The  
  
stars were almost visible through the thatch in the roof. Even here, he  
  
thought, he was under the same sky as Buffy. Even here, he could not get away from her.  
  
The demon arrived at doorway carrying a small wooden box. Spike looked at him curiously, his knees drawn up to his chest like a child. The demon set the box down next to the mat, and stood again, facing Spike, towering over him.  
  
"Challenge the first, " the demon said. "is a test of your patience, your humility and your mind."  
  
"Can't we just skip to the strength ones? I'm not much for the old thinking right now. Just want this over."  
  
"That is exactly the point of the challenge, Vampire."  
  
"Right, then. What do I do?" Spike said with annoyance.  
  
"To be who you were, you must know who you were at the start, " the old  
  
demon said.  
  
"What in bloody hell are you getting it, old man?" Spike snapped. "I'm  
  
getting rather bored sitting here in my birthday suit waiting around for you to test me."  
  
"Patience, dead man, " the demon said calmly. "To be who you were, you must know who you were. Open the box."  
  
Spike tore open the box. Inside of it was a candle, a box of matches,  
  
several sheets or parchment and a fountain pen. "What is this nonsense?" he quipped annoyance in his voice.  
  
"Write, William. It is an art you have lost. My first challenge for you is to write a poem. Remember why you were made to begin with."  
  
"You have got to be kidding, " Spike said standing up, staring the Sandman in the eye. "This is not what I came here for."  
  
"This is exactly what you came here for, " the demon boomed, the sound of his voice knocking Spike back a few feet. "You wanted to go back."  
  
"Not to *him*!" Spike sputtered. "Not to that wretched love sick puppy."  
  
"Who you were is part of who you are. You cannot forget that, William." the Sandman replied.  
  
"I.." Spike began, like a child trying to argue an order from a parent.  
  
"This is the first challenge. When you are finished, I will know, " the  
  
demon said simply. "You may chose to leave at any time. If you do, you  
  
will be as you were when you came to me tonight. A serial killer in  
  
prison."  
  
"Alright, alright," Spike said, lowering himself to his knees. The old  
  
demon looked down upon him with a mixture of amusement and disdain, knowing that this would be the hardest of all for the vampire, and chuckled. Finally, he spun on one heavy heel and left the hut.  
  
*****  
  
Spike lit the candle. The smell was intoxicating. The room filled with  
  
thick, sweet smoke. The walls of the hut seemed to disappear. The smells of the plains were gone. He found himself sitting on a couch in the sitting room of the old Victorian mansion the night he was turned. Was he there?  
  
He looked around. Everything seemed solid, seemed real. He was alone in the room this time. There was an empty space where Cicely had sat, perched on the edge of the sofa, so many years ago. The thought of that moment still haunted him now. It was the moment he realized that he would never be worthy of a person's love.  
  
His notebook was in his hands. And his pen. He was dressed again in the same ensemble as he had been that night. That fateful evening. He was 21 years old again, and terrified of this place.  
  
Spike looked at the empty page, anger filling him. He did not want to write about love. He did not want to write at all. He set his pen to the paper....  
  
"He walks the night with heart in hand,  
  
Trying to get his fill.  
  
Hunting his pray, not afraid of a fray  
  
And the glory of the kill..."  
  
What was he thinking? That is not how it was. Life was not a pub song. It certainly wasn't then. And the Sandman had told him that he had to know who he was. What could he write about?  
  
Then she walked into the room. He stood politely as she came through the doorway, surrounded by people, effulgent in her beauty. His heart, which he noticed at this moment was indeed beating, skipped. Truly, always, he was a fool for love.  
  
She did not belong here. Not in that Victorian gown, her blonde hair  
  
bundled on top of her head like spun gold, little flowers weaving in and out of the strands. But she was so beautiful, more beautiful than he had ever seen her before. She was not the Slayer here, he could sense that. Just an ordinary young woman of extraordinary beauty. He thought about going to her, about speaking... but knew that this was not really her. And he was William. And William did not quite have Spike's finesse with the ladies.  
  
Instead he sat on the chesterfield and watched her move through the now  
  
crowded room. It dawned on him, after watching her smile and laugh and fan herself gently, that the people crowded around her were all familiar as well. He noticed that whelp Xander following her around in his short pants like a sodding lap dog. And the witches both trailing behind her giggling to themselves and blushing ruefully. Then the niblet, a beautiful little ray all her own, walking just behind her sister, pride and happiness on her sweet face.  
  
He looked down, trying not to stare, and pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose. Finally, he began to write.  
  
William sat there, engrossed in the page, glancing up at his muse quickly just to remind himself of her. Not that he could ever forget. His heart burst just looking at her, and he did not even know *this* her. He suspected he did though. He would know her anywhere.  
  
"William, " a gentle voice addressed him with such sweetness. He looked up nervously, pulling his notebook up against his chest. He stood in front of her. He was at a loss. He was not sure he even knew what to call her here. He was not Spike. And Buffy was not a common name then.  
  
"Elizabeth, " she said, blushing. " We met a few months ago at the  
  
Westmore's picnic?"  
  
"Y...e..s.." he stuttered. She sat down, perched on the edge of the couch. He sat down next to her, a respectable distance away.  
  
" I saw you sitting over here and thought you looked quite lonely, " she  
  
said. He stared at her, studying those eyes. He knew that this was an  
  
illusion, but her eyes were perfect. He could feel inside her head. She blushed under his gaze. "What are you writing?"  
  
"A poem, actually," he said clutching the book more closely.  
  
"May I read it?"  
  
"Oh, no, it is not that good.... I am an awful poet, " he answered. "Just biding the time."  
  
"I would still like to read it, if I could."  
  
He handed her the book, his hands shaking. Her soft peach skin brushed his as she took it from him, pulling it into her lap softly. She stared down at the page, reading quietly. Why? Why was she here? This is not who he had been. He had been William. The societal reject, the disaster of the town, the one man who no woman wanted. The Bloody Awful Poet. She was not there. And if she were, she would never have given him the time of day.  
  
He looked at her again, watching her studying the page. A tear escaped the corner of her eye and drizzled down her cheek.  
  
"Elizabeth, I am so sorry, " he said, ripping the book away. "Please do not be insulted. I think so highly of you.."  
  
"You wrote *that* about me?" she said, looking at him quizzically.  
  
"Yes," he said blushing. "I am a terrible poet, but a good man."  
  
"It was beautiful William, " she whispered, her eyes dewy.  
  
He stared at her, his head cocked to the side for a moment. This was not how it had happened. If this had been the way, he would have never run into that alley. He would have stayed there for eternity, drinking the perfume of her smile.  
  
" ' For she is to me as I am to her, murderer and savior' " she quoted. The last line of his poem. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Love is the end and the beginning, " he answered. "It destroys you, kills you, and you rise as something new. Something better."  
  
"I like that, " she said, resting her hand on top of his.  
  
Then it all disappeared. The house, the chairs, the clothes... her. Spike was kneeling on the floor of the hut, sweating, heaving as he forced the air from his lungs, coughing and crying. In front of him was a piece of parchment, a lengthy poem. The last line stung him as he read it over and over. She had murdered him and saved him again.  
  
  
  
  
  
(to be contd.) 


	5. The Battle and the Glory

Title: The Battle and the Glory  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating:pg -13 (violence)  
  
Feedback: Please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to JW and Co.  
  
Summary: Spike is remembering his trip to Africa and the challenges he had to face.  
  
  
  
Spike was lying on the mat in the hut, the air he had breathed was burning his lungs, the dead organ in his chest ached from beating once again. It was silent now. The perfume of the candle, the scent of her, was still thick in the air. He was exhausted, more  
  
exhausted than he should have been from writing a silly poem.  
  
The Sandman entered the hut and Spike turned his head just enough to see him. Going back *there* had taken all of the wind from his sails.  
  
"Your challenge is complete?" the old demon asked.  
  
"S'right over there, " Spike grunted in reply, lifting his had enough to point. He was mentally spent.  
  
"I trust that it is, " the demon answered.  
  
"What? You mean you aren't going to read the bloody thing?" Spike snapped, offended party because he went through all the trouble to write it, and partly because it was pretty good. At least in his opinion.  
  
"The point was, " the demon began, " that you had to know who you were. The point was the journey."  
  
Spike struggled upright, his chest still aching, his muscles rebelling. "Well, you got it all wrong, for what it's worth."  
  
"I did not 'get it' at all," the Sandman answered. "I just sent you there. You created the scene. I just set the stage." Spike looked at him, dazed and off balance.  
  
"I do not remember it like that. And trust me, I remember that night bloody well."  
  
"I did not challenge your memory, " the demon quipped coldly. "Are you ready to continue?"  
  
"Now?" Spike boomed. "No rest, no food, no clothes?"  
  
"This is not a hotel, Vampire, " the demon responded. "You can give in any time, but you leave the same as when you came."  
  
"Bloody hell, " Spike griped. "What next then? My map reading abilities? How about a spot of dog grooming?"  
  
"The next challenge will begin in ten minutes. The tribesman have left you clothing on the chest. You will also find weapons inside. Choose one and choose wisely."  
  
"Weapons... this is more to the quick," Spike said smiling, pulling himself off the mat.  
  
"Continue to the fire when you have dressed, " the Sandman said, leaving the hut with a flourish.  
  
"Poof, " Spike whispered under his breath. He walked to the chest. Atop the wooden lid lay what Spike thought was some sort of kinky caveman outfit. He stared at the loincloth thinking 'What am I, bleeding Tarzan? This wanker is having a bit of fun with old Spike.'  
  
But in the spirit of getting things done and over with, he donned the leather covering and set upon searching through the chest.  
  
Spike could not help but chuckle thinking that this old demon had nothing on the Slayer. Her box of goodies was tenfold more up to date. All that was in this box was a long, double headed spear, a cross bow, a shotgun, and a dagger. The poet in him grabbed for the dagger, but upon thinking about his surroundings, he chose the spear instead. The  
  
fight was the fun. The kill was just a bonus. Crossbows and guns were lazy.  
  
Toting his spear and looking all the world like a cartoon character, he left the hut, walking slowly toward the fire. It was night still. Or was it night again? Time had lost its relevancy.  
  
The demon stood in front of the fire, looking large and crusty and old when Tarzan Spike stopped his trudging. "Challenge the second," the Sandman announced, is a test of strength and veracity. You must know who you are in order to know what you are to become."  
  
"Get on with it, " Spike complained, "Show me the battle."  
  
"Are you *ever* going to get the point that it is about the journey?" the demon asked frankly, losing his ferocious glamour.  
  
"Let's just say I'm journeying, bloke."  
  
"You must battle to the death," the Sandman continued, re-puffed and dramatized.  
  
"With who? The mosquitoes?"  
  
"With her?" the demon replied, stepping back.  
  
From behind the flames, the visage of the first slayer appeared. She was primal and animal and everything he learned to hate and to love. She was Buffy's beginning, but also her fate. She moved toward him, catlike, seemingly coming from the inside of the flame, and for a moment, he stalled. He had killed two slayers in his day, but he had  
  
loved another. How could he send this one to hell?  
  
This one, he thought. But if it wasn't for her, Buffy would have had her wish. She would have been *normal* and they would have never crossed paths, but she would be happy and his heart would not be broken. He could kill her. Just like the others.  
  
In a flash, she was upon him, screaming and tearing at him like a lioness. She was a tangle of skin and teeth and hair and fury. But he matched her every move. Deflected her every blow. She flung him backwards into the stone wall circling the fire and he  
  
flipped her over his head into what should have been scorching flames. But she spun through, like embers on the wind and tumbled back at him, her bare feet plunging into his chest. He could feel the blood trickling from his nose, the crack of his ribs, but he fought  
  
her still, landing a crushing blow to her shoulder, knocking the wild girl down.  
  
An animal called from the wilds. and she turned her head startled. In a flash, he was over her, his spear pressed to the hollow of her neck. Her wildness faded. He wondered for a moment if he could do it. If he could kill her. In his mind, he reasoned that this girl was already dead. An illusion. A vision created by the old demon. He looked down at her face and she snarled like an animal, cursing him in a language he did not know. He lifted the spear and sent it crashing down.  
  
As the point touched the skin of her neck, the face of the girl changed. She was no longer some wild, angry beast. The blood poured from her throat and he swallowed hard, looking away. When his eyes fell back to her, she had changed. The blood pooled in her shiny blonde hair, her pretty eyes staring dead at the stars, her little hands frozen around the shaft of the spear.  
  
He fell to his knees next to her tiny body. He had fought the first slayer, but when the moment came, he had killed his love.  
  
To be contd. 


	6. The Choice

Title : The Choice  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating:PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: all characters belong to JossWhedon, Mutant Enemy etc.. just borrowing.  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Summary: Spike faces the third challenge.  
  
Spike awoke lying in the dirt, face down, by the fire. He could taste the blood on his lips, his face was covered in dried, crusting dirt and his eyes ached from the tears. He had killed her. His chest was heavy. The only thing left that truly mattered was dead. But how could she have been there at all? How was he there?  
  
He closed his eyes again and his mind filled with pictures of her. Elizabeth in his better version of the fateful night he had become a monster. Buffy in Sunnydale in her cute short skirts and little blonde ponytails. Buffy in the alley the first night they kissed. She had tasted so sweet. Buffy in the basement of the wrecked house spitting wicked words at him, but he knew even then she did not mean them all. And pictures of his beautiful Slayer, lying in the dirt with that shocked, dead stare, her neck torn open, and the blood. All the blood, crawling into her hair. Spreading out in the thirsty dirt.  
  
He had fallen to his knees next to her, when he had grasped what he had done. He remembered muttering over and over "Forgive me, " to her lifeless body. Pulling the spear from her flesh and holding her and aching as the last of her warmth slipped away. The last thing he remembered was holding her against his bare chest and crying.  
  
Now he was alone, next to the fire. Spike looked around and she was gone. Maybe it had all been a dream. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, looking himself over. He was covered in dirt and thick, shiny, drying blood. It was always about the blood. The empty spot in his chest began to ache again.  
  
The Sandman appeared from the huts as if from thin air. "Your challenge is complete," he announced.  
  
"Where is the girl?" Spike asked, teetering on weakened legs. Battered and bruised, his own blood was mixing with hers.  
  
"Dead, " the demon answered. "She has moved on."  
  
Spike's face broke for just a moment and he could feel the hot tears stinging his eyes. "Where did you take her?"  
  
"It's not right to go wandering after the dead, " the Sandman answered. "The world took her, not I."  
  
"Where is her body?" Spike was clenching his teeth, fighting back anger.  
  
"I fed her to the hyenas, " the demon answered. "What do you care, you killed her?"  
  
The words hit Spike like a stake to the heart. His head lolled toward the ground, his body, his spirit, shattered.  
  
"You have one more challenge, " the demon began, pre-empting Spikes response, " That is if you still chose to take it."  
  
Spike pulled his head up slowly, glaring at the demon with hot, wet eyes. "Get this over with, " he snarled in response.  
  
Three tribesman appeared from nowhere, grabbing Spike from behind. He began to struggle, but he was too worn, too broken, to fight them off. They pulled him back to the dirt, chanting, rolling him onto his side. He could feel them binding him. Then a blow to the base of his skull and the world was silent.  
  
*****  
  
When he awoke, it was still night, again night, forever night. He turned his battered face, realizing his body was immobile. The stars were clean and bright and he could feel the fire raging in front of him. It no longer mattered. None of this did. The last test was pointless. She was gone. He was only going through this to prove it to himself.  
  
The demon appeared in front of him, fire flickering up the length of his body. But the demon seemed smaller now. Or was Spike larger? He craned his head about and saw that he was suspended a few feet above the ground. Tied, fondly enough, to an enormous stake. This bugger had a sense of humour.  
  
"Challenge, the last, " the Sandman began. Spike knew better than to argue and gritted his teeth against the high drama. "To become what you are to be, you must know who you want to be."  
  
"What do I have to do?" Spike asked. He just wanted to go home.  
  
"Nothing, " the Sandman replied. "Just stay there in front of the fire."  
  
"Running out of challenges?" Spike quipped, wincing at the chuckle trying to escape his throat.  
  
"I believe you will find it challenging enough to be alone with yourself." With that, the demon walked away.  
  
"Bugger this," Spike compalined, twisting his hands in the binding, trying to free himself. But he could not move. Could not budge the wood or rope. He struggled until he could feel the blood seeping from his wrists, but the bindings just got tighter.  
  
"William?" he heard from his right. He turned his head, straining his tired eyes against the darkness. The crunching of old dirt underfoot. A woman appeared in a white gown.  
  
"Cicely?" he asked, shocked by her presence. She was standing just to the right of the fire.  
  
"Yes, my love," she answered. " I was wrong to have shunned you that evening."  
  
"Bloody late for that," Spike answered coldly.  
  
"You were sweet, " she continued, "but I could not get past what *they* thought of you. When you left, I found there was no one else who would ever love me more." She was taunting him. He could feel it. Her chocolate hair was shining against her pale skin. "Because of my mistake, we are both monsters," she said, her face changing to Halfrek's before his eyes, "But if you come back with me, William, this will all be gone."  
  
"What do you mean, gone?"  
  
"We can go back. Go back in time. Go back to the house. And neither of us will have ever felt the pain of the last 122 years. It will be as it should have been, We will have a home. A family. I will love you until we both die, together."  
  
Spike was silent, remembering his feelings for her then. How he would have loved her, given her all of him...  
  
"Spike," he heard. It came out as a sensual hiss from his left. His head spontaneously jerked around toward it. "My dearest boy," Druscilla sang, slinking from the shadows, dangerous and beautiful and insane. "Why do you listen to silly little girls?" she asked, coming to him, rubbing against the stake like some sort of wild cat. "You know you belong in the dark, with me."  
  
"Dru, " Spike whispered.  
  
"Remember all of the fun we had, playing with the mice? Wandering through the alleys chopping their little heads off and drinking? And the things I taught you, my love. My dearest son..." Watching her was like watching a mad, beautiful merry-go-round, circling his feet. " I saved you," she whispered, "and you belong with me."  
  
"Druscilla," Spike said, feeling drawn to her. Pulled to her darkness. Wanting to drown in her sea.  
  
"I made you and you were a god in the darkness," she hissed, "and I can make you that way again. The devil is among us."  
  
He was hypnotized by her. He always had been.  
  
"No one has eveer loved you like I have loved you," Druscilla whispered, her hands touching his bare legs. She was right. No one did love him but Dru. No one ever loved him.  
  
"Come with me. Come back and we will rule the night together"  
  
"William?" he heard again. He wrenched his gaze from Druscilla and turned back to his right. But Cecily was gone. He looked around for the voice, all the while, Druscilla circling him, touching him. Drawing him in.  
  
"William? Spike?" he heard a second time. It was almost a little girl's voice. The flames flickered and opened like a parting sea.  
  
There she stood, whole and beautiful and sparkling in the dark night. She stood inside the flames, ghostly and angelic, framed by every light in the sky.  
  
"Buffy?" he asked, incredulously.  
  
"Yes," she answered, simply.  
  
"You're alive?"  
  
"I always am to you," she answered, " I will always be to you."  
  
"Why are you here?" he asked her. Staring at the light.  
  
"Because you called me,:" Buffy answered.  
  
"Nothing else?"  
  
"What other reason do I need?" Her voice was soft, angelic. Druscilla was still circling, dancing at his feet.  
  
"Are you going to say anything?" he asked, thinking the other women had come with an agenda.  
  
"What would you like me to say?" The girl had always been difficult.  
  
"Profess your undying love or something," Spike answered, almost chuckling at the thought.  
  
She smiled, getting the joke. " I am what I am, William. And you are what you are."  
  
"What is that all about?" Spike asked, his head cocked, his blackened eyes staring at her quizically.  
  
"I miss you," she said and stepped back into the fire.  
  
They were gone. The world was dark again.  
  
*****  
  
Spike came back to the land of the living on the mat of the hut. He had been bathed and dressed in his black jeans and t shirt. He was exhausted mentally, physically, but he felt somehow *better* for it.  
  
The Sandman came into the hut. But he wasn't the Sandman anymore. Well, he was, but he looked like the tribesman. Tall and frail and in simple garb. "Your challenges are completed." the old demon said. "Your wish has been granted."  
  
"It's gone?" Spike said, involuntarily feeling his head.  
  
"It has been gone since you got here," the demon asked simply. Spike thought for a moment. The point was the journey.  
  
"What do I owe you, mate?" Spike asked, standing to leave.  
  
"An answer," the demon said, reaching out, touching Spike's shoulder.  
  
"To what?" Spike asked.  
  
"Who are you to become?"  
  
Spike thought for a moment. "I am what I am," he answered, touching the Sandman's hand.  
  
And he was gone.  
  
*****  
  
When Spike opened his eyes again, he had been in Sunnydale. In an alley. He was propped against a wall, standing as if he had been there the whole time. In front of him was a woman, sobbing, hiding behind a trash can. For some reason, she did not see him. He was hungry.  
  
He walked toward the woman, smelling her, tasting her in the air. Then a noise caused his head to turn. There was a younger vamp, searching through the trash barrels, overturning the lids, mumbling wildly to himself. The vamp was about three feet away from the girl.  
  
"Bloody hell," he had said, changing directions and heading from the huddled woman, turning instead toward the vamp. "Don't you blokes have manners anymore?" he muttered, grabbing the leg of an old chair and plunging it into the vampire's empty heart.  
  
to be contd. 


	7. The Unexpected

Title: The Unexpected (pt 7 of NA)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just borrowing.  
  
Summary: Spike awakes from the dream of his challenges and falls into conflict with the Scoobies.  
  
The Unexpected  
  
Spike's eyes flickered open. He stared around at the comfortable familiarity of his crypt and sighed. It had all been worth it. But he could not shake the idea that somehow Buffy knew about the trip. Somehow she knew that Spike was no longer a serial killer in prison.  
  
He stood up, stretching like a cat. It was dark outside. He had slept the entire day. Maybe being free of torment had its benefits. Slowly, Spike dressed, clearing the cobwebs from his sleepy head, and started out to Buffy's. He promised he would come round.  
  
All the lights were on at the Revello Drive house. No wonder she was always short on the utility bill. Spike walked to the back door, knocking softly. No answer. He tested the knob and found it unlocked, letting himself into the kitchen.  
  
There were muted voices coming from the family room. Several of them, rhythmically speaking, intense silences punctuating the chatter. Spike moved through the sitting room and into the doorway. They were all sitting there. The lot of them, circling the coffee table. Buffy was sitting on the couch, hands in her lap, her head hanging down.  
  
"Buffy?" he asked from the doorway. She looked up and so many emotions crossed her eyes at once. She seemed surprised, a little relieved, and then startled.  
  
"YOU!" he heard in a booming voice, and Xander was out of his chair, coming at Spike like a steam engine with legs.  
  
"Xander, stop!" Buffy called after him, but it was too late. Xander sucker punched Spike in the nose, immediately cocking his arm back for another blow.  
  
Buffy moved to get up but Willow pressed her back. "Pick your battles," Willow whispered into Buffy's ear. "They need to sort this out."  
  
"I can't believe you would even show your ugly face, " Xander ranted, furious, raging, raining blows on Spike like a hailstorm. Spike deflected most, but did not throw any of his own.  
  
"Xander, Stop!" Dawn screeched, running towards the pair, but Tara grabbed her, not wanting Dawn to even go near the fray.  
  
"I take it you've told them, love," Spike asked, ducking his head from one of Xanders slow right hooks. Buffy shrugged from her space on the couch, nodding slightly.  
  
"You bastard," Xander screamed, "You really are a dirty, evil, vampire. You raped her didn't you?"  
  
Spike's face went completely blank, staring at the boy, shocked and horrified at his statement. Before Xander could even open his mouth, Spike hauled his right arm back and let it fly, striking Xander square in the shoulder and knocking him clear to the other side of the room. The boy's body hit the wall and slid down to the floor with a thump.  
  
Everything was silent. "I would never," Spike snarled, "Even in my worst years, do that. I think you should know by now that I love the girl," he finished. The blank stares were all on him. He turned on the heel of his boot and walked out of the room.  
  
"Spike!" Buffy called after him, jumping from the couch, running over the coffee table and all of the still bodies on the living room floor. The back door was ajar and she slid through, out to the porch. He was sitting there, like so many nights before. Softly, she sat down next to him. The silence was deafening.  
  
"Did you tell them that, Buffy?" Spike asked, swallowing hard. "Did you tell them that I..." He couldn't finish the sentence. He could not even fathom the words.  
  
"No," she answered confidently. "I didn't say anything like that."  
  
"What did you say?" he asked, finally bringing himself to look at her.  
  
"I did not think they needed to know *how* it happened," Buffy answered blushing a little, a slight grin on her face. He could not help but smile back at her. "So, I just told them that I was... and that the baby was yours. Xander ran with it, I guess."  
  
"Should've ripped the whelp's head off for that," Spike replied, anger creeping back into his voice.  
  
"How's your head?" Buffy asked, touching his forehead softly.  
  
"Fine, why? Got a bloody mark? Boy doesn't hit that hard."  
  
"But you do," Buffy replied. A puzzled look broke across her face. Then her eyes widened. He saw her processing everything, thinking it through. She had not known.  
  
"It's gone, Pet," he said, putting his hand on hers, resting against his temple. "I am what I am."  
  
The words rang in Buffy's ears. She knew she had heard them. She had said them before. She shook her head as if she had a chill.  
  
"You alright, Slayer?" Spike asked, concern taking over his face.  
  
"How? When?" she answered, still dazed.  
  
"It's a long story, " he replied, looking at his knees, "which I would be happy to tell you. I just don't think now is the time."  
  
Buffy stared at him, blinking her beautiful, doe eyes, looking as if she were in another world.  
  
His voice brought her back. "Slayer?"  
  
"When?" she asked again.  
  
"To be honest, Pet, I'm not sure. Time went all wonky there for a while. For both of us, it seems. But it was pretty close to the time Soldier Boy came back to town. Just after, if I remember it right."  
  
Again, Buffy's face was blank, her hand still resting under his. Still as a statue.  
  
"Buffy?" he asked, squeezing her fingers, "You OK? You need to go to doctor?"  
  
"No," she answered, coming back to him again. "You will tell me how?"  
  
"Yes," he answered, "But the mess inside needs to be cleaned up first."  
  
She nodded in reply, but he knew Buffy was not done with him yet.  
  
"Spike?" she asked tentatively. "Have you...fed...since then?"  
  
He stared at her quietly, those blue eyes melting her, looking into her mind. Since the night he returned, in the alley, the thought had not really crossed his mind. "No," he answered, "I've no taste for it anymore. Think I've gotten attached to those flower-shaped onion things."  
  
With that, she smiled. The same smile she had given him when she stepped through the fire that night in Africa. "You coming in?" she asked, standing up, crossing the porch.  
  
"If you would like," he answered.  
  
She thought for a moment, holding the door open. "Yes, I would like," she answered. He followed her into the house.  
  
to be contd. 


	8. The Plan

Title: The Plan (part 8 of NA series)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just  
  
borrowing.  
  
Summary: The Scoobies have found out Buffy and Spike's secret. Now they  
  
have to get back to business...  
  
The Plan  
  
"We need to figure out a game plan," Willow was saying. They had all  
  
settled down enough to sit civilly in the same room and discuss the facts of  
  
the situation. Xander was propped in a chair, sulking, holding a bag of ice  
  
to his shoulder. Spike was on the couch next to Buffy, leaning over the  
  
coffee table and perusing a set of old texts.  
  
"The nerd herd is planning something and we have to stop it," Willow  
  
continued. Buffy chuckled at her serious tone. 'Nerd herd' and 'serious  
  
tone' should not have been in the same thought.  
  
"Will, what are they going to do, bore us to death?" Buffy quipped.  
  
"Buffy, she has a point," Spike corrected.  
  
Buffy pouted at the remark. "I liked you better when you were all putty  
  
wimpy."  
  
"Wimpy? When was Spike wimpy?" Dawn asked. Every warning glance in the  
  
room focused on the teenager. "OK, OK," she backpedaled.  
  
"They've been hunting you for almost a year and we know they are capable  
  
of..." Spike continued.  
  
"Bad things," Tara finished, being mindful of Dawn.  
  
"And you, Pet, are not going to be up for battle for a while," he continued  
  
looking back at Buffy.  
  
"I can battle. Me strong," she chided, flexing a bicep.  
  
"You knocked up," Dawn lashed back. Buffy tossed a milk dud from the candy  
  
dish at her sister.  
  
"Seriously, Buffy, I think you should lay low on the battle front," Willow  
  
said sweetly.  
  
"Maybe some little ones?"  
  
"Ones with kittens and very small puppies," Willow answered, patting Buffy's  
  
leg.  
  
"Back to the point, ladies," Spike interrupted. "We are out our big gun  
  
here."  
  
"And you're no use against them because they're human," Anya chimed in,  
  
directly at Spike.  
  
Buffy's eyes were huge again. Spike laid a hand on her knee. Xander  
  
noticed and twitched at the movement.  
  
"That's not...*exactly*...true," Spike replied. The room was silent.  
  
"What?" Willow began. "Spike, are you...."  
  
"Human?" Dawn squeaked.  
  
"Not exactly," he answered. "But I have no chip anymore. And I don't seem  
  
to be quite a vampire."  
  
"Freak," Xander huffed. Spike shot him a warning glare.  
  
"Are you still super strong and non-wimpy?" Dawn asked.  
  
"Yes"  
  
"Are you...eating people again?" Anya questioned with her usual bluntness.  
  
Spike chuckled.  
  
"No."  
  
"Can you fight nerds?" Tara asked. Buffy burst out laughing at the thought.  
  
Spike squeezed her knee trying to get her back on topic. Xander noticed.  
  
"I do believe I can," Spike answered, infected by Buffy's laughter.  
  
"Then you are in," Willow commented, simply.  
  
"But... they want Buffy..." Dawn was getting serious all of the sudden.  
  
" I assure you, Niblet, they will not get her." Spike's eyes met with  
  
Dawn's and just like the older Summer's girl, she melted.  
  
"What about the bot?" Tara asked. "Can we rebuild her and hide the real  
  
Buffy?"  
  
"Hide me? No hiding."  
  
"Willow, do you think you can rebuild her?" Spike asked, turning toward the  
  
witch.  
  
"No bot, she's creepy," Buffy commented shuddering.  
  
"Love, please. It would be a good distraction," Buffy's turn to melt under  
  
the crystal blue stare.  
  
"Alright," she agreed, obviously unhappy. 'Pick your battles' she thought.  
  
"I'll see what we have left of her and get started," Willow stated getting  
  
up. Tara stood with her.  
  
"Can I help?"  
  
"Sure, " Willow answered smiling and touching her lover's hand.  
  
"I'm going to get out of here," Xander stated, standing sorely. "Anya, do  
  
you want to get some coffee?"  
  
Anya thought hard for a moment. Finally, she nodded in agreement and stood  
  
to meet him.  
  
"Dawnie, wanna come stay at Tara's this evening? It'll be like a slumber  
  
party." Willow asked.  
  
"I think I'll..." Dawn began, thinking she really wanted to stay there with  
  
Spike. She shot a look back over at her sister, " ...get my things." Dawn  
  
got up, running up the stairs as Willow and Tara went down to the basement  
  
to collect the box of Buffy bot remnants. Anya and Xander waited by the  
  
door.  
  
  
  
Within minutes, they all filed out of the house. Spike was left sitting on  
  
the couch next to Buffy, skimming the musty old volumes. As the door  
  
clicked shut on the last of them, he looked up, startled to see the empty  
  
room.  
  
"Where's everyone gone?" he asked, not realizing how absorbed in planning he  
  
had been.  
  
"Away," Buffy answered, crossing her feet on the coffee table.  
  
"Guess I had better be off then," Spike commented, standing. Buffy was  
  
taken aback. Shocked. A little sad.  
  
"You're leaving? " she asked. Spike was confused. This was usually about  
  
the time he was booted to the curb.  
  
"Do you need something, Slayer?"  
  
"Would you...stay... a while?" she asked, an innocent grin breaking onto her  
  
face. He could not help but return it.  
  
"If you would like," he answered, sitting down, a respectable distance from  
  
her.  
  
She turned to face him, pulling her legs underneath her. She looked like a  
  
child waiting for a story.  
  
"Spike, I want you to tell me about Africa..."  
  
  
  
to be contd 


	9. Strange Fate

Title: Strange Fate (part 9 of NA series)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just borrowing.  
  
Summary: The Scoobies have found out Buffy and Spike's secret. Now they have to get back to business...  
  
Strange Fate  
  
Spike looked at Buffy in shock, crystal eyes as wide as saucers. "Buffy, how did you know about Africa?"  
  
"I was there, wasn't I?" she asked, looking down at the sofa cushions.  
  
"Yes," he answered, visions of Elizabeth in the fine gown with flowers in her hair, of Buffy staring dead at the stars, of her stepping though the flames, all flooding back. " At least it seemed you were."  
  
"Some part of me was, I think," Buffy answered, playing nervously with her fingers.  
  
"What do you mean, Pet?"  
  
"You said something when we were talking outside about the chip..."  
  
"What?" he asked, sliding his hand under her chin, lifting her eyes to his. He could not get the vision of her dead stare from his mind. He blinked hard, trying to clear it.  
  
"I am what I am," Buffy continued, "And you are what you are, William."  
  
He could see her in his head, stepping through the flames, that angelic smile that made his decision clear.  
  
"I said that to you, I think," she whispered.  
  
"You did," he answered, puzzled by this. It had to have just been a vision. She was here. "You were in my mind quite a bit."  
  
"Tell me, " Buffy asked, grabbing his hand, desperate for contact, some connection to make this all make sense. She felt there was more. She knew there was more.  
  
"It is a difficult story. I'm not sure you will like it all, love."  
  
"I need to hear it, Spike. I need to understand... all of this," Buffy responded, her eyes beginning to ache.  
  
"Alright, Love," he whispered, squeezing her hand. He began to tell the story. How Riley had come back and Buffy had told him she couldn't love him. How hurt, how angry he was at her. He explained how Halfrek had come to him, as he was a lover scorned, both by Cicely and Buffy, so he was entitled to a wish. And then he was in Africa.  
  
Spike tried to put into words, the challenges he had faced. Tried not to gloss it over. He explained to her how he had been sent back to the night he was turned and Elizabeth, Buffy, saved him. He told her about the poem. He recounted the battle with the first slayer and struggled, trying to hold back the onslaught of hot tears as he explained the slayer's metamorphosis. How he felt when he realized that it had been Buffy's throat, not his nemesis, but his love, spilled open into the dirt and darkness. He tried to put into words how that one moment had broken him, killed his spirit. Finally, he explained the last challenge, and how he had been faced with a choice. What Cicely, Druscilla, and especially what Buffy had said to him that night. And how he came back to Sunnydale and gave up his dinner for a staking and had not had the urge since.  
  
Buffy stared at Spike in stunned silence, her fingers twining in and out of the silver chain on her neck. Finally, she spoke. " All I said to you was that I missed you?"  
  
"That was all I really needed to hear," he answered simply.  
  
"But Dru, Cicely..."  
  
"Were illusions," he interrupted, " As, I thought, were you. But I suppose that I needed to hear all of their talk. I needed to face who I was. The point was the journey."  
  
"And based on that, you decided you belonged here?" Buffy asked, incredulously.  
  
"I suppose I did, Pet."  
  
She was silent for a long time, staring thoughtfully at him. A debate raged in her mind about what to do next. Telling him would hurt him, but not telling him might be worse.  
  
"I'm glad you came back," she began, "And I'm glad you knew I wasn't an illusion."  
  
"Well, I am bloody happy that for the most part you were," he answered, thinking of the blood crawling into her hair, spreading in the thirsty dirt. It was always the blood.  
  
She took Spike's hand and raised it to her cheek, pressing his palm against her skin. His head tilted slightly, his gaze questioning her. Slowly, she slid his hand down the side of her neck and under the piping of her shirt. In the hollow of her throat was a thin, red line.  
  
Spike jumped, horrified, afraid to look. Buffy held his hand steady over the scar. "It's alright, Spike, " she whispered, fighting back the urge to sob, " I think I understand."  
  
"It's not alright,". His desperation was evident. "It's...."  
  
"You had to take a piece of me to make yourself whole again," Buffy continued, "You asked me a million times in a million ways to help you and I never understood. Now I do. What I did to you before you left made me a little more a monster. And what I gave you back that night, the blood, made you a little more human."  
  
"Buffy, I... I'm so..." Spike tried to speak but horror choked his words off in his throat.  
  
"It's all about the blood," she whispered. " Blood is life. You gave me yours and I had to give you mine."  
  
His thumb traced the line, his heart breaking. The tears were flowing from his tired eyes again. "I'm so sorry, Buffy. You know I never wanted to hurt you."  
  
"I know, William," she answered, raising his eyes to hers." I forgive you."  
  
Spike was swimming in her, lost in her. In all his life, and all his unlife, he had never expected to hear the word 'forgive'. He had not sought it out mostly because he knew he never deserved it. There was no penance for everything he had done. He wanted her love, but in that one word, he realized that he had craved more. She handed him his life in forgiveness.  
  
"Buffy, " he whispered, almost speechless. "How can you... forgive me?"  
  
"I don't know," she answered at a loss. She meant it, but she did not know why. "I don't know a lot of things, Spike. When they made me, when they made a Slayer, they left a lot out. They gave me all this strength and this power and this responsibility, but they forgot to tell me how to feel and how to trust. You gave me that. So, I owe you my forgiveness. At least that's how I see it."  
  
It occurred to Spike, for just a moment, that he had jumped again. Come to another reality, another place, another Africa, and this was just his own mind playing out his existence by his own set of rules. She looked at him and he saw himself. He saw his undoing and his making. The Slayer was everything he was and everything he was not, all in a tiny perfect shell, and she was giving him what he wanted.  
  
Before he could find the words to utter, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Not like in the past. But a soft kiss, like a feather touching his skin, her breath caressing his mouth. She did not move away, but he could feel her lips move softly as she spoke. "I know very little about love," she whispered, "but I do feel it. And I want to know, William. It is something they left out. Can you help me, please?"  
  
His hands were on her cheeks and he could feel her tears. He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips. "For you, anything."  
  
To be contd. 


	10. And They All Fall Down

Title: And They All Fall Down (part 10 of NA series)  
  
Author: Nimue Rating: PG -13  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just borrowing.  
  
Summary: It is two months later. The threat is upon them. What happens next?  
  
And they all fall down...  
  
Buffy landed two sharp blows to his face, and a roundhouse kick to his chest. He caught her leg on the down swing and started to flip her, letting her go just before she lost her balance. She spun, switching her weight from one foot to the other, and dodged past him, deflecting a right hook just before it caught her in the chest. Again, she went to kick, and he was on her in a flash, pulling her off balance and catching her just before she hit the floor.  
  
"Would you stop pulling your punches?" Buffy huffed at Spike, assuming fighting position again.  
  
"Can you take a break, already? You've been beating the bloody piss out of me for an hour now," he said rubbing his jaw.  
  
She dropped her hands and laughed a little. "If you would just let me patrol more, I wouldn't be so aggravated. I have to let it out somewhere."  
  
And he knew she was right. She was the Slayer. She was made to fight. But he was not ready to put her out there full time knowing that the nerd herd situation was coming to a head. So, training in the Magic Box back room seemed like the best thing to do. Still, he had thousands of bruises that begged to disagree.  
  
"I need to fight," she said, turning toward the punching bag and nearly knocking it off the chain.  
  
Spike came up behind her and pulled her arms to her sides, spinning her to face him and backing her to the pommel horse. "You'll have to make due with me," he said, pressing against her, trapping her between his chest and heavy equipment. She could feel herself melting even now.  
  
It had been two months since her demon induced time jump. Two months since they had started planning defenses against the nerds. Two months since they figured out she was about three months pregnant.  
  
"I need to Slay," Buffy protested. "I need to go kill something."  
  
"Look, Buffy," he said, pinning her to the pommel horse, his hands on either side of her hips. She pretended to look annoyed, but he could tell by the little purr she let escape that she still liked it when he was a little forceful. Spike grabbed her and pushed her up so she was sitting on the canvas top of the equipment. Lazily, her legs swung on either side of his hips. "I will just have to do."  
  
He responded. "I can't kill you." She said, laughing. "Well, I guess I could but that wouldn't be very nice. I need to patrol more. I need to be out in the action."  
  
"You patrol, with me, three days a week. I take the bot the other four. That was the deal, and that will have to change soon too," he said casually running his hand across her stomach. She was still tiny, but becoming more obvious by the day.  
  
"Why?" she whined. She was starting to sound more like the Niblet than the Slayer. "I'm going to go nuts all cooped up and hidden like."  
  
"Is it *that* bad to be stuck staying with me?" he asked, fascinated by her eyes. He had made a separate room in the lower level. Actually, two, in case the Niblet wanted to be close by. Spike hadn't wanted to push his luck, but he ended up waking up with her next to him nearly every day now. They would start out in their own beds, but one or the other would wake up in the night and just be drawn to the other. He had even started to pick up her sleeping schedule and was awake most of the day.  
  
"No," Buffy admitted. "But don't let it go to your head. As soon as this is over, that bot is out of my house, out of my bed, and I'm back in."  
  
"Alright," he said, almost resenting the idea that the day might ever come.  
  
"Why won't you let me fight more? I'm strong. But even when I do get to patrol, as soon as things heat up, you always jump in and do all the fun stuff." she questioned, crinkling her nose.  
  
"Buffy," he sighed, "I will give you that your strength has increased. Your are landing your blows and I am definitely feeling them," he started, rubbing his jaw, " but you are getting slower and your balance is off. I could have flipped you three times in the last 10 minutes. "  
  
"Guess that is not good," she said, her hands unconsciously travelling to her swollen belly. She had a beautiful curve to her now, he thought. The only place she was gaining weight was her abdomen. When she was sleeping, he would stare at her, thinking how perfect she was. This suited her. She glowed.  
  
"No," Spike answered, tenderly "it would be very bad, Pet." He leaned in to kiss her nose. She tried to smile, but being leashed was not her strong suit.  
  
"I feel useless," she said , letting her legs lazily wrap around his waist, pulling him closer to her. He was desperately trying to resist her as he knew Dawn was just outside the door. And neither he nor his Slayer were known for being particularly quiet.  
  
"You are hardly useless, " he responded, raising one eyebrow at her. She smiled so sweetly. He loved that he could make her smile like that. Her arms draped over his shoulders as he kissed her softly again. Buffy could feel the rush come over her. Nothing was ever able to stop it. His lips just grazed hers, but she felt shivers running up and down her spine. He smiled, feeling her shudder.  
  
"Hit the spot, love?" he whispered, his mouth tracing her jawbone. Her head cocked back and her legs tightened.  
  
"Um-hmm," she answered, finding his mouth again, letting her lips feel his, her breath blow into him. She was everything to him. She and the child. For once, he thought, she might feel half of what he did.  
  
His hands were tangled in her silky hair, his whole body at her whim. The kiss deepened and he felt warm, the ache in his chest was screaming. His lungs filled with her air. Every time he touched her, he felt more alive.  
  
"Spike?" she whispered, hoarsely , "We go....we need to go..."  
  
"Go where, Pet?" he asked, confused, drunk with her.  
  
"Someplace...other than....the...Magic Box..." Buffy answered, each word punctuated by kisses. He suddenly remembered where they were, and that Dawn was in the shop pretending to help Anya, but probably with her ear to the training room door, listening.  
  
"After you, " he said helping her off the equipment. Before he could even take a step, she was out the door.  
  
*****  
  
"Dawn, can you stay here with Anya? Spike and I have to go get supplies," Buffy barked as she fled through the shop.  
  
"What supplies?" Anya asked.  
  
Spike turned towards her, raising an eyebrow but not missing a step "Supplies," he enunciated to Anya.  
  
"OH! Supplies," Anya repeated.  
  
"I'm not stupid, you know, " Dawn called after them as they disappeared into the basement. Buffy was almost running, Spike at her heels, until she reached the back entrance of the lower level. The witches had created a barrier that recognized only the Scoobies and only they could pass. She swung open the door, pulling Spike in after her, not bothering to pull it closed. Their lips met again, hungrily now. But it was different then when they started, when the house fell down. Just as passionate, sometimes just as rough, but she lingered now. She let him touch her. Kiss her. Be with her. It wasn't for comfort alone, although that was part of it. It was an undeniable need that both of them had to be one.  
  
******  
  
Buffy lay sleeping on her side. Spike was pressed up behind her, his body touching hers in every place he could. Her head was under his chin and she was breathing so softly. He could feel her heart beating against his chest and could almost feel his own strain to start again, to keep up with hers. His one arm was under her head, his free hand protectively over the swell of her belly. If he died today, he would die both happy and a man.  
  
*****  
  
Spike must have dozed off because he was startled by the voice now coming from the corner, near the back entrance.  
  
"This, I did *not* need to see," Xander said, shielding his eyes.  
  
Spike instinctively grabbed the sheet and pulled it over Buffy as she slowly started to swim back from her slumber and her eyes began to flicker. "Ever heard of knocking," Spike asked, rising annoyance in his voice.  
  
"What's going on?" Buffy whispered, rubbing her eyes.  
  
"Spike, get up. We need your help," Xander ordered. Buffy sat up, pulling the sheet up her chest.  
  
"What is it, what is wrong?" she asked, sensing Xander's fear. Spike climbed out of the bed with his usual lack of modesty and walked over to the opposite side of the room to get his jeans.  
  
"Would you hurry up?" Xander asked, shielding his eyes and trying to disguise his breaking voice.  
  
"What is the tearing rush, whelp? I was enjoying an afternoon...."  
  
" I *know* what you were doing. I don't need a play by play. Door was open or I wouldn't have ever come in. But this is important, so could you *please* get with the program here?" Xander said, exasperated.  
  
"Alright, alright," Spike said, fastening his belt and grabbing a new back t-shirt. "What is going on?"  
  
"We can talk on the way," Xander said, flashing a nervous glance at Buffy and back at Spike.  
  
"Whoa, wait a minute, you can't just not tell me, " Buffy complained. She knew something was very wrong.  
  
"Dawn will be here in a few minutes. Anya will bring her down," Xander said, fear shaking his voice. Spike looked at the boy, realizing that something was really wrong. He would never voluntarily leave Buffy and Dawn at his place without good reason.  
  
"Tell me what is going on!" Buffy screamed, jumping out of bed, the sheet wrapped around her. Spike grabbed her arm, steadying her.  
  
"It'll be alright, love. I'll go take a look and be back," he whispered, kissing her forehead.  
  
"No one is leaving until I know what is going on," Buffy said, moving in front of the door.  
  
"We don't have *time* for this!" Xander screamed at her. "Tara's been shot."  
  
"Wha..what?" Buffy asked, feeling the anger and the fear pushing the pool of tears to her eyes.  
  
"Love, please, stay put. Please," Spike said. "Promise me. I will be back, just let me go see what we can do."  
  
"I should be there...for Willow..." Buffy whispered, knowing it was a losing battle.  
  
"I know, Pet. But let me suss out the danger first, OK? If you won't stay here for me, please stay here for the baby. Nib'll be here soon to keep you company."  
  
"Spike?" she whispered, looking up at him with those beautiful wet eyes.  
  
"It'll be fine, Buffy. I love you." She moved out of the way and he and Xander were out the door before she could protest again. 


	11. Rivers

Title: Rivers (part 11 of NA series)  
  
Author: Nimue Rating: PG -13  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just borrowing.  
  
Summary: Tara has been shot. The threat is upon them. What happens next?  
  
Rivers  
  
Spike and Xander ran through the dusky streets toward Revello Drive. It wasn't complete darkness yet, but Spike had become somehow more tolerant of dawn and dusk since Africa. Everything had been slightly different since then.  
  
"What in bloody hell happened?" Spike asked, as they jogged toward the house.  
  
"I don't know, exactly," Xander ranted, letting the fear come back into his voice. "Willow called, she could hardly talk. She said that Tara had been shot."  
  
"Where was Dawn?" Spike asked.  
  
"Out with the bot. Trying to look normal. Like the plan. Anya went to get her at the mall and take her to your place."  
  
"Who else was in the house?" Spike asked as they turned onto the street, still running.  
  
"Just Will," Xander responded.  
  
Spike skipped up the front steps two at a time, pushing the door open with a bang. Xander followed behind him. They may not have always appreciated each other, but both were glad they were not going into this alone.  
  
"Will?" Xander called from the foyer. "Willow, where are you?" Spike started up the steps to the second floor, Xander following after glancing into both the living and dining rooms, finding them empty. They reached the foyer and turned towards Willow's room.  
  
No one was there. It was absolutely barren. Spike stopped, sniffing something in the air.  
  
"Please don't tell me you are getting hungry," Xander said as Spike wheeled back around toward Buffy's room.  
  
"Gunpowder, you idiot," Spike responded. He turned the corner into Buffy's room and had to step back, horrified at what he saw. Even with all of the terrible things he had seen in his life, that he had done in his life, he could not stomach what was in front of him. Maybe it was because he cared for the good witch. Maybe because needless violence was nothing he ever enjoyed. But this was too much. Tara was lying in Buffy's bed, her hair spread behind her like Sleeping Beauty. There was one, solitary bullet hole in her third eye, the space above and between her eyebrows. The blood had soaked the pillow, the sheet, dripping in thick rivers to the floor. Spike could hear Xander heave behind him, running for the bathroom.  
  
Willow sat beside the bed, holding her lovers hand, sobbing. Spike walked toward the bed, his stomach sinking. This was meant for Buffy. It was Buffy's room, Buffy's bed, Buffy's pillow. Why was Tara even here?  
  
"Willow?" Spike said, touching her shoulder. She jumped, spinning toward him.  
  
"Oh, hi, Spike," she answered with a disconcerting normalcy.  
  
"Did you call an ambulance?" he asked gently.  
  
"They said she was gone," Willow answered simply. "But she's not." Spike was thrown by her frankness. "Someone should be by to pick her up soon."  
  
"Willow, why don't we go downstairs," Spike asked, touching her hand. She tore it from him, heading back to the side of the bed.  
  
"I'm not leaving," she said.  
  
"Ok," Spike answered, trying not to look at Tara. It was killing him to see her like this. It was killing him to know it was supposed to be Buffy.  
  
Xander finally got the nerve to come back into the room. Spike stepped out of the way to let him at Willow. "Will?" he whispered, his hands on her shoulders. "Will, come on, let's go."  
  
"I can't," she sobbed, breaking down. "I can't leave her, she needs me."  
  
"It's OK, Will," he said, pulling her into his chest. She shook, choking on her tears.  
  
"It'll never be OK," Willow responded between sobs. Spike stood helpless watching them. Knowing what Willow felt like. Never wishing it upon even his worst of enemies.  
  
"What happened, Red?" Spike asked. Xander shot him a glance, but let it slide. They needed to know to protect the rest of them.  
  
"I...I was cleaning," Willow sobbed. "I was vacuuming my room. Tara came over and she had a headache..." She could barely speak through the hitching breaths. "So, I told her to go lay down in Buffy's room and I would come check on her when I was finished. I never heard anyone, until I heard the shot."  
  
"Red, did you see who was here?" Spike asked tenderly. Willow was holding onto Xander for dear life.  
  
"It was Warren," she whispered. " I saw him from the window leaving the house."  
  
Xander and Spike exchanged glances. They needed to get Willow to Spike's with the others and take care of this.  
  
"Willow, I want you to come with me now, OK? Spike will stay here with Tara until they come to get her. I'm going to take you to stay with Buffy,'" he crooned, trying to be as soothing as he could in front of the most horrible thing he could imagine.  
  
"I don't want to go near her," Willow hissed, her sadness slowly , palpably changing to anger. The hairs on the back of Spike's neck stood on end. He could feel the room change, her change. "I tried to bring her back, you know," Willow said, suddenly cool, flat, nonplussed. She pulled away from Xander, standing to face Tara. "But a human killed her. Not as easy. Wasted that magic on Buffy."  
  
"Willow," Xander said, a little shocked. "You know you don't mean that."  
  
"Of course, I do." Willow said. "If I had not brought Buffy back, Tara would not have died. That bullet was for Buffy. She should've taken it."  
  
Xander's eyes were wide with horror. Spike's head was cocked, listening, trying to figure out where Willow was going. Whether this was the delusional rambling of someone who had just seen the worst thing in their short life, or someone with a potentially dangerous chip on their shoulder. Either way, no one was taking Red back to his crypt or anywhere near his Slayer until she calmed down a bit.  
  
"Willow, Buffy did not choose to come back, we brought her against her will," Xander said softly, his shaking hand on her back. Willow softened a bit, calming, regaining control.  
  
" I know", she whispered. Red was slowly coming back. "I'm sorry," she sobbed, breaking down again in Xander's arms. "It was my fault."  
  
There was a knock on the door downstairs. Spike excused himself, trying to run from the odd feeling he was getting from the remaining witch and from the sight of Tara lying there like a helpless, slaughtered lamb. And he was the evil one for so long. Spike let the morgue official in silently and slipped into the shadows on the corner of the porch. He pulled a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it, sucking hard until the tip was glowing red in the dusk. Willow had calmed some, but what she had said had made an itch right at the base of Spike's neck. Something was not right. He wasn't about to take even the slightest chance with the safety of Buffy and his child. Xander would have to stow Willow elsewhere.  
  
It seemed forever before the slick black bag rolled out of the house on the cold steel stretcher. Spike watched it go by like some macabre parade, wincing thinking of the sweet, beautiful young girl inside. When he thought about it, he was about her age when he died. But he did not die like this.  
  
Xander and Willow followed the gurney out. Red was so tiny against him. She was blank. Devoid of expression, of anything, just numb. Xander stopped on the porch as Willow followed Tara down the steps like a bridesmaid in a wedding gone awry.  
  
"Spike, I'm going to go with her to the morgue and .. help her." "Right, good thing to do, " Spike answered, tossing his cigarette into the bushes. "She needs you right now."  
  
"I will bring her back to your place when we are done,"  
  
Xander responded, beginning to walk away. Spike laid a hand on Xander's shoulder. "You need to take her somplace else," Spike said.  
  
Xander looked shocked at first. "But Buffy is her best friend. You said Willow needed us."  
  
Spike thought carefully for a moment, looking the frightened boy over. "You're right," he finally said, "But to be honest with you, I don't think Red is quite... right.. at the moment."  
  
"Of course she's not Right. Her lover just died. You say you know how that feels," Xander snapped.  
  
Spike fought to control his patience. " I do know how that feels," Spike said slowly, "But you heard what she said inside. Do you want to take the chance that she might get a little dodgy and take out Buffy and her child?"  
  
Xander studied Spike's face. He saw something he did not think he had ever seen before in the vamp's pale features. Fear. Spike was genuinely afraid. Afraid for Buffy. Afraid for all of them.  
  
"I'll take her back to my place," Xander replied, touching Spike's shoulder, "then I will meet up with you and the rest of the gang at the Magic Box. I'll call Anya when I am on the way."  
  
"We need to deal with Warren," Spike said, becoming angry again.  
  
"*WE* do. Wait for us. Go check on Buffy," Xander called out, taking off down the stairs.  
  
  
  
To be contd 


	12. Vistation

Title: Visitation (Pt 12 of NA)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just Borrowing  
  
Summary: Tara has been shot. The Scoobies try to decide where to go from here....  
  
Visitation  
  
The silence was deafening. It was more quiet than any five people should be able to generate. They sat around the familiar table in the Magic Box, staring down at the wood grain as if all the answers to the meaning of life and death were contained in the molecules of timber. The silence covered them like a blanket. They had lost their collective conscience.  
  
Finally, Anya spoke up. " I called Giles," she said, tapping her fingers on the table. The sound pierced the blanket like a stake ripping through flesh.  
  
"Good, honey," Xander replied, putting his hand on hers. He had to stop the drumming.  
  
"Is he coming?" Buffy asked, her voice measured, steady. Her eyes were tired and wet.  
  
"He said tomorrow," Anya answered, still trying to drum under Xander's palm. Her foot began to tick under the table when she realized her hand was silenced.  
  
"Good," Buffy replied in the same careful tone. " How's Will?" she asked, turning her eyes to Xander.  
  
"A doctor at the hospital gave her a sedative. She's asleep on my couch," Xander answered, letting his fingers twine gratefully through Anya's soft hand. " But we should be getting back soon."  
  
"I should go," Buffy said, staring at her clasped hands. Spike visibly tensed, but said nothing. Xander remembered his look on the porch. Xander understood the look.  
  
"Buff, you need to stay here," Xander answered. "I'll take care of Willow. Warren was...is... looking for you. You are better off here."  
  
"But Willow needs me," Buffy said, trying to be strong. Ignoring the gnawing fear in the base of her skull.  
  
"Buffy, stay here, " Dawn pleaded, her eyes tearing again. Both Summers girls stared over at Spike.  
  
Spike thought for a moment, fingers tracing the edges of the mug in front of him. "I think you're better off here, Pet," he finally said, "but it's your choice."  
  
Buffy sat thoughtfully for a moment. "Can you bring her by tomorrow?" she directed at Xander in the same measured voice.  
  
Xander glanced over at Spike. "Let's see what she's up for," Xander answered carefully. Spike's shoulders relaxed. Buffy was silent.  
  
"What do we do about Warren?" Anya asked. They were all silent again. This wasn't some supernatural demon. This was just a very evil man.  
  
Spike spoke up. "I've put some ears out for him. But we have other things to deal with first. I'll take care of it." Buffy shot over a concerned glance ,then realized she was too tired to fight.  
  
"What about the funeral?" Dawn asked.  
  
"It's taken care of," Xander said softly, touching Dawn's soft hand. "Day after tomorrow." Dawn just started to cry. Spike instinctively wrapped an arm around her shoulder.  
  
"I think we've all had enough," Spike said, cradling the younger Summers against his chest.  
  
"We'd better get back to Willow," Xander stood and pulled out Anya's chair. She rose quietly. "See you tomorrow."  
  
"Goodnight," Buffy answered, turning her attention back to Dawn and Spike.  
  
"Slayer, I need to patrol a while," Spike began once the room was empty save for the three of them.  
  
"Let me come with," Buffy pleaded. Spike nodded over at the sobbing girl under his wing.  
  
"Think you and Niblet could use some rest," he said softly, standing and pulling Dawn to her feet. Buffy followed quietly as he took them back through the tunnels to the crypt.  
  
"I'll be back, Love, " he whispered, brushing his lips against Buffy's. She took Dawn against her and nodded. Not the night to fight.  
  
*****  
  
It was as if even the creatures of the night were mourning the loss of the good witch, Spike thought as he walked about the desolate graveyard. Not a vampire, a demon, not even a mouse. It was silent. He was a creature of the night, really, even if he tried to fool himself into thinking he was a man. And he was missing Tara already.  
  
Spike had walked in lazy circles for an hour, not seeing anything out of place. The silence spread throughout the night. It was about time to go home. Spike needed her tonight. Needed to know she was alright. 'Something wicked this way comes', he thought, as he headed toward the crypt. And we will be in the center of the storm.  
  
"Spike?" he heard as he approached the front entrance. Spike reeled around at the sound of the woman's voice. He knew Buffy's every sound. This was not her.  
  
"Spike?" he heard again. He wheeled the opposite direction. There she was. Standing next to a granite angel. Light, serene, and pretty.  
  
"Tara?" he asked, walking toward the monument. She glistened, shimmered in the moonlight. He sniffed the air and tasted nothing.  
  
"Hi, Spike," Tara said, shyly.  
  
"But you're..."  
  
"So are you," she retorted, smiling. He could not help but return it. Slowly, his smile turned to a pained grimace.  
  
"You weren't....turned?" Spike asked, craning his head to look at her neck.  
  
"No," she whispered with the same serene smile. "This is just my....spirit."  
  
"So your witchy stuff even works upstairs, girl?" Spike chided. Tara chuckled in response.  
  
"Guess so," she answered.  
  
"What brings you back here?" he asked, his eyes mesmerized by her silvery glow.  
  
"I needed to tell you something."  
  
"Me? Why?" he asked, incredulous. "Shouldn't you be whispering sweet nothings to your lady friend?"  
  
Tara's face when blank. Spike shuddered imperceptibly at the change. "Spike, something's coming," she continued, all humour gone from her voice. "You feel it. You know it."  
  
He nodded cautiously. "Something wicked this way comes," he muttered.  
  
"It could end you all," Tara spoke, her tone utterly even.  
  
"Who could? What?"  
  
"That is not mine to give," she replied, blinking slowly. But he saw something cross her face. A shadow of her former self. Darkness.  
  
"Can you help us?" he asked, admitting his fright to himself, swallowing it like fire. He had been afraid more since Buffy had let him into her life than he had in the previous 120 years of his existence. Fear did not sit well with him.  
  
"You can stop it," Tara answered. "Only you. You have to drain it almost dry."  
  
"Tara, I don't...I won't..." Spike sputtered.  
  
"To save them, you will have to drain it, Spike. And you will have to journey. What happens then is out of my realm."  
  
"I don't understand...." Spike said, completely dazed by her shining, dancing..  
  
"Bye, Spike," she whispered, pushing up onto her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. "See ya round."  
  
She was gone.  
  
He stopped a moment, trying to drink it in. 'You're mad', he muttered to himself, starting back toward the crypt. "Bloody Hell."  
  
*****  
  
Spike crept through the door, only to find the Slayer and her sister on the couch, the telly flickering softly in the background. Dawn was sound asleep with her head in Buffy's lap. Buffy's fingers lazily smoothed her sister's hair.  
  
When the door opened and clicked shut, Buffy craned around her tired, knotted neck. He stood still in the doorway, staring at her beautiful face peeking up above the back of the sofa. Holding that face in his mind. Watching her watching him. Time was short.  
  
Spike walked to the couch, silently scooping Dawn into his arms and carrying her down to her bed. Buffy followed, watching him, smiling softly as he tucked the teenager into her bed and brushed her tear-matted hair from her cheeks. Slowly, he turned back to Buffy, taking her hand, leading her back to his room. His bed. Their bed.  
  
"Spike, you alright?" Buffy asked. He had not said a word. She began to slip out of her sweater, her pants. He sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought. She came to him, only in her little lace tank top and pretty pink panties. Spike rested his hands on her hips, studying her. Her big hazel eyes, her pretty coral lips, her graceful neck, the hollow of her throat, her beautiful chest, the gentle rise of her belly, her strong, smooth legs. He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. For all he had right now, this moment, may not be the same for long. He believed Tara. He knew she was right. The perfect world he had finally made may soon disappear. As long as he could keep Buffy, he could live with it.  
  
"Spike?" Buffy asked again, leaning down to kiss his lips. Hers were warm, sweet, soft against him.  
  
"Yes, Love?" He was trying not to let his voice betray him.  
  
"You OK?" she queried, her warm hand brushing against his cheek.  
  
"Everything's fine," he said, smiling up at her. She grinned back. He still loved that he could make her do that. "One thing though?"  
  
"What?" she asked, climbing onto the bed, straddling his denim clad knees.  
  
"Can we start off in the same bed tonight?" he asked.  
  
"I was going to ask if it was alright if I stayed here," she answered, rocking back on her heels, sitting on his knees. Spike ran his hands over her shoulders, her arms, her tiny hands.  
  
"Please," Spike said, leaning back onto the bed, pulling her down with him. He cradled her against him, her head nestled under his chin. "Buffy?" he asked quietly.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You know I love you, right?"  
  
"Yes," she answered, nestling closer, her leg thrown over his waist.  
  
"I'll always be with you," Spike said, kissing her forehead tenderly.  
  
"I'm glad," Buffy answered, her hands lazily brushing over his chest. "I don't think I would like it much without you."  
  
He couldn't stop the tears.  
  
To be contd.. 


	13. Things Change

Title: Things Change  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy etc.. Just borrowing.  
  
Summary: Giles is back in town. The Sunnydale he returns to is nothing he expected..  
  
Things Change.  
  
Some days feel like they pass in seconds. Some feel like years. The day after Tara's murder had felt like both.  
  
Giles had arrived in the afternoon, coming straight to the Magic Box. Buffy had never really realized how many things had changed since he had left her, until he walked through the door. Anya had closed the shop. Xander had brought a near catatonic Willow by for what seemed like silent seconds. Dawn was curled in a corner like a lost kitten. Buffy was feeling her pregnancy and the weight of not being able to save the day when it counted. And Spike was the one trying to hold it all together. Things had changed a lot.  
  
Buffy watched him walk through the door, his eyes wide, taking it all in. She had been sitting on the steps to the loft, Spike behind her, his arms draped over her shoulders. Spike had been more clingy than normal since Tara's death. She usually was more guarded about him being affectionate in front of the others. But she had craved his clinging in these last days.  
  
Buffy rose to greet Giles, not knowing what to say. He stopped in his tracks when he saw her. Willow had told him about what had happened. About the glitch in the cosmic continuum. He had not completely believed her. Until now. The guilt seized him like a vice. Not only had he left his charge to face her life alone, he had left her so desperate that she had taken up with a vampire. With Spike. And now she would bear the devil's child.  
  
She was caught. Buffy saw the horror on Giles's face. To look at her was disgraceful to him. She stood, staring, unable to speak. The tears began to flow.  
  
"Watcher," Spike addressed Giles, standing and descending the stairs, taking his place next to Buffy. He could smell her fear like a fading perfume.  
  
"Spike," Giles replied, forcing himself to nod politely. Anya and Dawn were silent. An audience to the awkward show.  
  
Buffy said nothing, tears streaking down her cheeks. Hormones, she thought, stay strong.  
  
Giles approached her slowly, setting his case on the table. "Buffy?" he uttered, stopping a few short feet from her tiny body.  
  
"Hello, Giles," she replied as calmly as she could. Spike bristled, waiting.  
  
Now was not the time, Giles thought. He leaned down, pulling the girl to him, hugging her, listening to her cry softly into his shirt. "There there," he said, stroking her hair. "No worries."  
  
"You hate me now," Buffy whispered. Spike was silent, looking at the watcher, waiting for his reply.  
  
"Heavens no, Buffy," Giles answered. "Everything is just...different. We'll adjust."  
  
Spike nodded at Giles, accepting the answer. Giles released the teary-eyed girl from the embrace. Instinctively, Buffy stepped back next to Spike.  
  
"So," Giles began," Shall we sit down and catch up?"  
  
"Right," Spike said, accepting Giles would not upset her more for the time being. "I'm going back to the crypt for a while. You be alright, Pet?"  
  
"Yeah," she said, smiling up at him. Damn her eyes, he thought. She could tell him anything and he would be too lost in her to notice.  
  
******  
  
"I failed you," Giles said from his perch on the bench in the training room. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.  
  
"Nah, no failing," Buffy answered, sitting heavily next to him. Some days her baby was cooperative. Others, Spike's kid reeked havoc on her. Today was the latter.  
  
"I did, Buffy," Giles said, clasping his hands together with a slap. "I left you alone when you needed me the most. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I had to let you grow up."  
  
"In some ways you did, " she answered, "do the right thing, I mean. It hasn't be pretty, but we've made it."  
  
Giles looked at her closely. "Buffy," he began," Tara is dead. You and your sister are living underground. Willow is... no longer Willow. And don't get me started on Xander and Anya."  
  
"Tara was murdered, Giles. By a man, not a demon." Buffy could feel the tears slip silently from the corners of her eyes again. " We can fight demons, but we have no control over men."  
  
Giles thought for a moment, wiping his glasses. It was almost as if he could not think without the action.  
  
"That is true, Buffy, and I am sorry."  
  
"She would've died even if you were here," Buffy stated simply. Giles was astounded. He had come here to offer her comfort, but she was the one consoling him. Maybe she had grown up.  
  
"But I still failed you," he said, tentatively.  
  
Buffy was silent; knowing there was a point. Knowing where this was going. She had to face it some time.  
  
"I left you," Giles continued, staring at his feet, " and you felt so alone that you turned to your enemy for comfort. To punish yourself, am I right?"  
  
Again, Buffy answered with silence. That was how it began. She nodded in agreement.  
  
" I can understand that on some level. Had I been here, though, I would've been able to stop..this.. before there was...irreversible damage," Giles said, looking at Buffy's face, her swollen belly, back to her face.  
  
Buffy felt anger. Complete and total fury igniting her blood. She waited a moment, trying to think, to remember how she had felt in the beginning. Her confusion, her fear, her torment. Giles did not know everything. She had to try and stay calm.  
  
"Actually, I've kind of taken to calling the *damage*, my child," she responded, trying to temper her anger. The dance had begun. Giles was taken aback. He had expected her to be resentful, reproachful, only going through with this because she could not bring herself to kill what was inside of her. Giles had never expected her to be accepting of her predicament.  
  
"Buffy, I.." the watcher stuttered.  
  
"A lot has changed," Buffy interrupted, "and I don't have the energy to explain it all today. But Spike is not the demon you once knew. He is no more William the Bloody than I am a normal girl. He doesn't feed. He doesn't harm humans and he has no chip to force him to be that way."  
  
Giles blinked, swallowing hard. He had not known about the chip. "All he has done is try to protect us. Not just Dawn and me. All of us. It took me a long time to accept it. I still haven't completely. But he loves me, Giles."  
  
"He has no soul," Giles retorted. Back to the rulebook. "He cannot love."  
  
"That garbage," Buffy snapped, standing up. The anger was rising again like mercury in the heat of the sun. "He loves better than I ever will. And about the whole soul thing.. you know, I just don't get it. Warren has a soul. He shot Tara in cold blood thinking it was me. Spike doesn't, but he takes care of us, watches us. Not sure if I buy the whole soul makes you good, no soul makes you evil, argument anymore."  
  
Giles was wide eyed, staring at the girl pacing in front of him like a lioness guarding her cub. "Buffy, I don't mean to judge you."  
  
"I know," Buffy replied, letting a long slow breath escape her lungs, "but you are judging. And you have no right."  
  
"I don't suppose I do," Giles answered, his eyes falling back to the floor.  
  
"Look," Buffy began, settling back down onto the bench next to him. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know this is a lot. It's a lot for all of us. None of it is normal. But since when has Buffy Summers ever qualified as 'normal girl of the month'." Giles had to smile. Some things never changed. "The thing is," she continued," until Tara died, I had actually felt...happy... for the last few months. The gang was still here, still together. Dawn was actually listening to me, well, actually to Spike, and had started to come around. And even though the timing was bad and the father is a fangy, evil vampire, I get to have a baby. Never thought that would happen."  
  
"No," Giles said, resting his hand on her knee, " most slayers never have that opportunity."  
  
"I know." Buffy was steeling herself against what she knew was true. That good ole Slayer expiration date. "Spike is really happy. I know I may not be around to raise her, but I trust Spike will never let her down."  
  
"It's a girl, then?" Giles asked, raising his eyes to hers.  
  
"We don't know. Guess it is just a feeling. Kind of steering clear of too many doctors. The whole vampire/slayer physiology thing. But I don't really need to know." Buffy's hand was on her stomach. She was missing Spike. She could feel it in her veins. She could feel him in her.  
  
"You alright?" Giles asked, watching her drift away.  
  
"Fine," she answered bringing herself back. "Hey, if it helps you sleep at night, the baby has a heartbeat. Not a total demon, at least."  
  
"You've heard it?"  
  
"Spike told me," she answered simply. " He can hear us all the time."  
  
Giles was silent. He had not readied himself for the Slayer actually loving the Vampire. Tolerating, working with, even suffering through an accidental pregnancy, but Giles had not been prepared for the simple fact that they were in love. That they were happy. That the baby was a blessing to them, rather than a curse. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pang of jealousy. Spike had taken care of her, watched out for the Slayer, taught her, trained at her side, kept her, and gave her a family. None of which Giles could do.  
  
"Buffy, I am happy for you," he said, finally looking at the girl. In some strange way, it was the truth. She answered with a glowing smile. One he had never seen. He had failed her. Spike had not.  
  
*****  
  
When Spike returned in the early evening, Giles took his leave, taking Dawn with him. He used the excuse that Dawn needed a solid meal and a change of scenery, but really he thought that Buffy needed some time alone. Some time with Spike. If he could not accept this was happening, he could at least transcend his own opinion for the sake of the older Summers girl.  
  
The Magic Box emptied. Spike watched Buffy punching the hanging bag until he thought her hands might shatter. He couldn't bring himself to spar with her now. She tore into the faded leather, beating out her frustration, her upset, her fear, her anger. Blow after blow rained on the bag, and as she fought, her tears rained down her cheeks. He had to let her go. As much as he hated to see it, he had to let her work through it and just be there when she was too tired to fight.  
  
Finally, she stopped, standing there, staring at the bag. Watching it swing slowly on the chain, still reeling from the momentum of her blows. Slowly, Spike walked to her. The blows had stopped, but the tears still drizzled down her warm cheeks. He wrapped his arms around her, her back pressed to his chest. "Did you want to talk about it?" he asked her, his voice so soothing in her ears.  
  
"Nah," she said, " just felt like killing something."  
  
"I think the bag is now quite dead," Spike said, kissing the top of her head. She giggled, pushing herself back against him. "Want to patrol with me?"  
  
"Yessss.." she responded in that sexy little voice of hers.  
  
"Then off we go." Spike started out the back door into the night, his Slayer in tow. They walked the night together, as they always had. She did not say much, but he could feel Buffy's contentment being true to her nature. It was hard on her to be the protected one. Harder still to be stuck in a body that would not function has she wished it would. Not that she ever complained. But he knew that Buffy longed for the fray. Not that much longer.  
  
They walked for an hour and saw very little. Spike thought about going to find a vamp somewhere just to give her something to do, but decided to just let fate take it's course. No need to find danger where it did not belong. Buffy seemed happy just to be hunting. She was more like him than she thought.  
  
"Are we still on the Hellmouth?" Buffy was being snarky. He loved that.  
  
"I believe so, Pet."  
  
"Where are all the creepy crawlies, then? What, they all on spring break?"  
  
He chuckled. "That itchy for the old rough and tumble?" he asked.  
  
"Very itchy. All itchy like" Spike grabbed her wrist, pulling her over to him. Everything about her made him crazy. "Think I can scratch it for you, Slayer?" he asked, diving down, his lips touching her neck, his human teeth scraping her skin. Her eyes closed and her head fell back, a happily little mewl escaping her lips.  
  
"Itchy, scratch," she muttered, his mouth finding hers. "Much scratching."  
  
Spike picked her up, carrying back to the crypt, kicking the door open with a resounding bang and back to closed with nearly as much force. He could not force his mouth from hers. Once they connected, it was always as if a locomotive was speeding out of control and would not stop until it collided with its target.  
  
Buffy was warm and alive in his arms. He yearned to feel that alive. They never made it back to the bed. By the time they had reached the couch, he could not take another moment of her soft breath and warm body against him. Every part of him needed her. Craved her. And she took him willingly. Spike made love to her all night. Every moment. What started out as something ferocious and desperate, turned into something so tender that his heart cracked thinking that one day he would have to live without her. Not today, though.  
  
It was almost daybreak when she finally fell asleep against him. Spike listened to the two sets of heartbeats next to him, drumming like soft rain in his mind. Gentle and quiet and beautiful and kind. This is what would always be with him. Whatever might happen, whatever might become of them, this would be what he would remember when he thought of happiness.  
  
to be contd. 


	14. The Long Kiss Goodbye

Title: The Long Kiss Goodbye (part 14 of NA)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just Borrowing.  
  
Summary: This is the day of Tara's funeral. How will they get through?  
  
The Long Kiss Goodbye  
  
It was a gray day. The rain pattered down softly in the late spring air, kissing the ground, bringing the world back to life. It was bittersweet. The sky was thick with clouds, but the ground was lush and fertile. It smelled nice. Like the days she used to sit on her porch and watch thunderstorms roll past. Back when she was a kid.  
  
They did not have far to go to meet the patch of earth where Tara's body would lie peacefully, forever, if she were lucky. Buffy had not thought about Spike going, but she hadn't really thought about him not going either. When she walked out of the room in her black dress that swung loosely around her knees, he had been standing there in a perfectly fitted black silk suit, a crisp white shirt, a somber black tie. She had not even known he owned a suit. Maybe he bought it for this day. Looked as if it had been made for him.  
  
He looks so handsome, she thought.  
  
She looks beautiful, he thought.  
  
Spike had held out his hand and she took it, letting his envelope hers. He grabbed an umbrella and led her out the door.  
  
They had walked to the spot, fingers entwined, not saying a word, but feeling each other's thoughts.  
  
Is it terrible to think that I am *glad* it wasn't me?, Buffy thought.  
  
Is it horrible to be *glad* it wasn't her?, Spike thought.  
  
Everyone was huddled around the coffin. The coffin was perched above the hole in the earth that would swallow it. Anya and Xander were curled around each other. Dawn clung to Giles in a new black dress. Buffy could feel her sisters pull toward her and the blond man in the black suit, but Dawn stood her ground. Willow was at the head of the box, no umbrella in sight. The rain trickled down her skin, dripping from her hair. Spike could not help but think of the blood. Tara's blood, drizzling in little rivers to the floor.  
  
He shook, clutching Buffy's hand, closing the gap between them and the others. Buffy fitted in next to Dawn, wrapping her arm around her. Spike encircled Buffy with his. It was a human chain. Odd how grief was the one thing that linked them all time and time again.  
  
Willow had gathered herself and began. She wanted to perform the ceremony herself. Insisted on being the one to help Tara cross the bridge. She had that right. Willow had loved Tara fiercely, even in the bad times. She deserved the chance to help her through this last time.  
  
Buffy cried quietly, the tears falling like the rain. Dawn was sobbing against Giles' suit coat. She did not have Buffy's penchant for muting her feelings. Spike was still, moved by Willow's words. Sensing the sadness and the sweetness of the Red of old. It washed over him like a tide. He clutched Buffy tighter.  
  
One thing Spike had never understood about death is that no matter how it happens, no matter how many times one sees it, there are never words to heal or even soften the pain. He still could feel Buffy's death, even with her next to him, more alive now than she had ever been. Nothing could take that knife from your heart. Nothing could heal the pain.  
  
When Willow was through, she leaned forward to kiss the shiny box. All eyes fell in watery pools toward the ground. Except for Spike's. He had never had the chance to kiss Buffy goodbye. She was in the ground before he ever got to her. He remembered sitting there, next to the mound of dirt where she had been buried and running his hands through the soil. Watching his tears drip onto the new grass. He remembered it like it was bloody yesterday.  
  
Willow was silent now, kneeling, the tears and the rain mingling on her cheeks. No one moved. No one spoke. They just stood, linked together in the rain. The world would always spin, and all but one would meet the end and be lowered into the ground one day. The knowledge never made it easier. Especially for the one who would not die. He would stand in the rain for each and every one of them. Even the one that was yet to be. It would never hurt any less.  
  
*****  
  
They found themselves seated again around the table at the Magic Box. All but Willow, who would not budge. Would not leave that spot until she felt that Tara had truly gone on. They had all left her there, even though they had thought it wrong, because it had been what she wanted. How does one say no to someone who has lost it all?  
  
They sat in a circle in silence. The same questions lingering. The same answers missing. The tears had been replaced by and eerie numbness. The awkward sedgeway between grief and trying to move on. A bottle of whiskey was circling the table, silent swigs burning the throats of all but the Summers girls. Didn't matter. There was no forgetting this pain anyway. Buffy tried to think of better things; of her child, of Spike, of her future. Even if that was only a short time. Buffy had seen both sides of the coffin. She knew there was no easy way to do this.  
  
It had been hours since they had saw Tara put in the ground. None of them had noticed that it was full night. That the rain had stopped and the mother moon was high in the sky. Time was something that had lost its meaning to them, as it was infinite and finite, all at once. Just like them.  
  
Dawn broke the silence. "Hey, I remember when I was younger and got upset about stuff, Mom would play the glad game with me."  
  
All eyes turned to the child. "I'll bite, Dawn. What's the glad game?" Xander asked, trying to smile at the girl.  
  
"Instead of thinking of all the bad things, you think of all the things you are glad about."  
  
"Not much in the mood for games, Nib," Spike muttered. Buffy nudged his foot under the table. "But if it'll make you feel better, have at it," he quickly amended, returning the nudge to Buffy.  
  
"Enough footsie," Xander said to the pair. "I'm in Dawn."  
  
"I'll play, I like games." Anya announced in her normal, lilting voice.  
  
"Alright, Dawn," Giles forced himself to play.  
  
Buffy nodded at her sister, preoccupied with Spike's hand on her knee.  
  
"I'll start," the teenager said. "I'm glad... that I'm doing better in school. Oooh, and that Giles took me shopping." Dawn grinned. Giles blushed, wiping his glasses. Buffy gave him the mock evil eye. "And I'm glad that Buffy is here and that she stopped playing the stupid 'Oh, I HATE Spike, he's EEEEVVVVIIILLLL' game," Dawn chided in her most annoying voice. Buffy glowered. Spike barely contained a chuckle. "And I'm glad that I have a family again. Since mine all up and left," she finished.  
  
"Lots of glad you got there," Buffy joked. Dawn tossed a cookie at her, which Buffy snatched from thin air and devoured. "Hungry baby," she uttered crumbs on the corners of her mouth.  
  
"Giles?" Dawn said, as he was next to her at the table. "Well," Giles began, "I'm glad that I am here and that I can see you all again, although I wish it was under different circumstances..."  
  
"Get on with it, Watcher," Spike teased.  
  
"Right. Yes. I'm glad that you all have found your ways. However... different... they may be. And I'm glad that you are all here, and alive, and barring the events of the last few days, happy."  
  
"Well done," Anya chimed, "I'm next. I'm glad for..."  
  
"PG version, honey," Xander interrupted.  
  
"Oh, right," Anya agreed, nodding at Dawn. Dawn smirked at Xander. "I'm glad for Xander. He's my best friend. And I'm glad you don't hate me anymore because I don't say things the way you would. And I'm glad for sex..."  
  
"PG," Xander reminded her.  
  
"Right. And I'm glad that there are no bunnies in this room," Anya finished, causing a reluctant giggle from both Dawn and Buffy.  
  
"Guess it's my turn," Xander began. "Let's see," he tapped his heavy fingers on the wood, "I'm glad for Anya. Who'd a thunk anyone would put up with me this long?"  
  
"Not I," Spike muttered under his breath, prompting another kick from Buffy.  
  
Xander shot over the compulsory look of contempt. "And I'm glad Buffy's happy despite the fact she is with the Big Bad Vampire- Man-Child," he tossed back. Spike's turn to smirk. "I'm glad that we are all still here, still together, and still fighting the good fight." Xander finished, gesturing to Buffy.  
  
Buffy wriggled in her seat. Spike smiled at her obvious discomfort with laying it all out there. Kind of fun to watch her squirm every once in a while, he thought. "I'm not very good at this bright-side stuff. Occupational hazard, you know?" she uttered, grabbing another cookie.  
  
"Well, you certainly seem glad enough for Chips Ahoy," Spike joked. This time her shoe caught him in the shin.  
  
"Ouch, Buffy," Spike complained, reaching under the table to rub his angry skin.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry," she feigned concern, " did I bruise you?"  
  
"Get on with it, Slayer," he grumped in response.  
  
"Alright, alright," Buffy whined, "I'm glad that we are all alive. Even though Tara is gone now, I'm glad because she is someplace better." Xander stared at the table, remembering when he found out Buffy had been torn from someplace better. "And I'm glad Giles is here." Giles smiled triumphantly. "I'm glad that Dawn is doing well in school and stopped being a klepto," she chided. Another flying cookie made it from Dawn's hand to Buffy's mouth. "And I'm glad for hungry babies," she joked with her mouth full, " because I can eat lots of cookies."  
  
"That it?" Dawn asked, prying. Buffy was silent a moment. Spike opened his mouth to continue the game but shut it again when he heard Buffy begin to talk. "And I'm glad that I don't have to do this alone. I'm glad for Spike," she finished.  
  
His neck almost cracked, he turned his head so fast, his crystal eyes melting her. If he promised to look at her like that forever, she would say it over and over.  
  
Dawn's turn to smile triumphantly. "I *knew* you would say it, " Dawn squealed.  
  
"Don't let it go to either of your heads," Buffy replied, taking a long drink of water. "Thirsty baby."  
  
"Spike?" Dawn said, crossing her arms. This she *had* to hear.  
  
"Well, Nibs, I'm glad for..."  
  
Pounding at the door interrupted his thought.  
  
"Customers?" Anya exclaimed, bolting up from her chair. Xander caught her wrist and pulled her back down. The pounding continued, frenzied and furious. Slayer and Vampire headed toward the door as the remaining few scooted out of sight. Spike grabbed the knob, Buffy at his shoulder, and flicked the door open with a jingle. Buffy stood at the ready, in fighting stance.  
  
Clem fell through the door with a resounding thud.  
  
"You?" Spike hissed disappointedly. "No kitten poker here, mate."  
  
"Spike," he stuttered out, gasping for breath. Spike grabbed the back of his collar and pulled Clem to his feet. " We found Warren."  
  
"Where is he?" Spike asked, beginning to collect weapons from the trunk to his left.  
  
"At the school playground," Clem huffed. Buffy looked confused. "But he's not alone."  
  
Xander appeared from behind the bookshelf. Clem nodded politely at him.  
  
"What's he got? The Cast of Next Generation with him?" Spike asked, loading ammunition into his duster's deep pockets.  
  
"The witch is there," Clem answered, leaning down, his hands touching his knees. Spike, Xander and Buffy ceased movement as one.  
  
"The witch?" Xander asked.  
  
"The red one," Clem sputtered, "Only she's not red. She's black all over. Her hair, her eyes. Hopped up on the dark one, from the looks of things. Got him cornered by the swings."  
  
The idea was so ludicrous, Xander chuckled despite himself. "Willow has black hair and has Warren cornered in a playground?"  
  
"Something is *wrong* with her," Clem answered, "Speaking in tongues and the like. Think she's going to kill him."  
  
"We've got to move," Spike said, picking up a shotgun. "You coming, git?"  
  
"Uh, yeah," Xander stuttered, grabbing a sword. Buffy began to rummage through the box, choosing a crossbow.  
  
"Slayer, stay here," Spike barked. "This is not a demon and it will not take the Slayer to kill it. We've got it."  
  
"Spike," she began, fury rising in her cheeks.  
  
"No, Buffy."  
  
"Xander?"  
  
"Buffy, stay here," Xander snapped.  
  
Giles appeared from behind the counter. "I might be of some assistance, if it is indeed magic," he offered himself to the cause.  
  
"Grab your poison, mate," Spike said grabbing the door. Buffy was furious, confused, helpless.  
  
"Stay here and do *not* let them leave," Spike ordered Clem, grabbing the front of his shirt collar this time and tossing him against a wall.  
  
"Here, right, no leaving." Clem repeated, nodding his head.  
  
"Ready?" Spike asked his two comrades in arms. He hated leaving Buffy, especially angry. But it was the only way. He could not bear to say goodbye again. "I love you, Pet," he whispered, leaning in to kiss her goodbye. She turned her face away angrily. He grabbed the back of her neck, pulling her face back to his. Quietly, he whispered, "I'm glad for you."  
  
And he let her go.  
  
They were gone.  
  
To be contd. 


	15. Red Omega

Title: Red Omega (part 15 NA)  
  
Author: Nimue  
  
Feedback: Yes, please  
  
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, etc.. Just Borrowing.  
  
Summary: The final battle. What more can I say?  
  
Red Omega  
  
It was dark as she walked down the streets and alleys of Sunnydale. The hurt was more than she could bear. All she wanted was to dull the pain. To forget that her heart had died for just a little while. To make it stop. Maybe even to find her again for just one last kiss.  
  
Willow hoisted her backpack on her shoulder, wiping the continuous stream of tears off of her cheeks, and searched for the feeling, the essence, of his domain. The invisible wall behind which was solace. An oasis from the pain.  
  
She found it easily.  
  
Rack was glad to see his Strawberry. Even comforted her as she cried every tear over and over again. He said he had just the fix. He said he could make it stop. He promised. She felt him begin, the power surging through their clasped hands, the shudder of pleasure as she succumbed to the darkness. The thrill of her nerves firing all at once. The sweet bliss of forgetfulness.  
  
He took it one step farther for his Strawberry.  
  
She felt the pinch in her reality as he body moved over hers then snapped inside like puzzle pieces fitting together. His darkness overcoming her light. The oneness of nothingness. He found the chink in her armor and slid inside of her skin.  
  
They had walked together in her skin. At first, it was an aimless wander back through the damp streets and alleyways. Then, he seized her innermost thoughts. Revenge. If she could not change it, she could *feel* something again. She could feel anger and rage and fury. He could help her with that. Rack pushed her conscience aside and took his seat at the thrown of her morality.  
  
"Warren," they hissed. But the sound came from what was once Willow's sweet lips. Sound like acid and fire.  
  
*****  
  
They ran for the DeSoto, clambering in like some nightmarish clown brigade, rushing so fast that they moved half of their normal speed. No one spoke. This was all too surreal to be true.  
  
Spike remembered the darkness that had come across Tara's face when she came to him. Remembered the black mask that had shadowed her. He recognized it now. It was Willow he had to face. Willow he had to stop. Not Warren. Not a demon. Buffy's best friend. Spike shuddered at the engine roared to life.  
  
*****  
  
They had found Warren, hiding in an abandoned warehouse. He was easy to catch. Especially since they had used Willow's body. And what Willow's body was wearing was tempting to any man. Rack had dressed her all in black. Black leather pants. Black backless top. All to go with her new hair and eyes. She had to look the part.  
  
They had tempted him into the open. Seduced him into the playground. Then the fun. They rejoiced in extracting his tongue so that he could not scream. And bound him to the jungle gym. Just like old times. Get beaten up in the school yard. But this was going to be the last time.  
  
Oh, yeah. This was fun.  
  
They knew that there was a spell. A spell that would bring back the lives that Warren had taken. All it required was his heart. Minor sacrifice. Just had to take it. Then justice will have been served.  
  
*****  
  
"Anya, are you coming?" Buffy said, picking up her crossbow. She pulled on a jacket and headed toward the door.  
  
"What should I take?" Dawn asked, looking at the chest.  
  
"A seat," Buffy said, ordering Dawn back to the table with her finger.  
  
"Hey, you're going to help and you aren't supposed to."  
  
"Slayer," she responded. "My job. Not yours."  
  
"Key," Dawn answered. "Might have a use somewhere."  
  
Anya appeared from the back with an axe. "I'm in," she chirped, heading toward the door.  
  
"Wait a minute, ladies," Clem said, positioning himself between Buffy and the door. Buffy glared at him impatiently. "You aren't going anywhere. Spike said...."  
  
Buffy grabbed Clem's collar again, slamming him into the wall. He winced. "Are you more afraid of a humanish vampire or a pregnant slayer?" she asked, the fury coming out in her voice.  
  
"Aw, man." Clem whined. Buffy dropped him to his feet. "after you."  
  
"Stay here and watch Dawn," Buffy ordered.  
  
"No way," Clem said. "You go, we all go."  
  
"Then you better be willing to save her if anyone comes after her. If you don't, I'll kill you myself."  
  
"Alright, alright. Jeez. No wonder you two get on so good. Both bossy as hell," Clem muttered.  
  
Buffy burst out the door at a jog.  
  
*****  
  
The DeSoto pulled up at the curb about a block away from the school. The engine sputtered and died. Spike leaned down, grabbing his shotgun and swinging open the door, all in one movement. Xander tumbled from the backseat into the street. Giles climbed carefully to the curb. They met on the sidewalk and side by side they began to walk toward the playground. Slowly this time. Carefully.  
  
Spike could feel the air. It was full of static, and it smelled like blood. Blood and decay. He tasted the foul, acrid ammonia of dark magic. "Something wicked this way comes," he muttered.  
  
"What was that?" Xander asked, trying to keep step with the vampire's fast walk.  
  
"There is evil here. Big evil, git." Spike answered.  
  
"We've met evil before," Xander countered.  
  
"Not like that," Giles said, pointing at the figures around the dark corner in the schoolyard.  
  
*****  
  
They were floating above the ground now, on a cushion of darkness. Warren could see everything that Willow's body was doing, but he could not make a sound. They had neatly stuck his tongue in his shirt pocket like some macabre hankie. Warren was nearly seizing with pain and fear, tied to the jungle gym. Hopeless against the dark witch before him.  
  
*****  
  
The noble three, the band of buggereds, rounded the corner, lit now by the street lamp. Willow sniffed the air, but shook her head and went back to the task at hand. She was hovering now, above the sand that padded the playground.  
  
Spike could hear her. Seductively hissing, playing with her mouse. Batting him around before she went for the kill. She had been at it for some time as the front of Warren's shirt and his chin was bloody. He never made a sound  
  
*****  
  
Buffy was well ahead of the others. Her heart was racing, her blood pumping through her veins at an unreasonable rate of speed. Her muscles ached and her stomach hurt, but still she ran. Buffy could hear the scattered footsteps behind her, but they couldn't catch up. They didn't get it. They did not understand that something was coming. Something was here. She could feel the static in the air in little shocks against her skin.  
  
Still she ran.  
  
*****  
  
They were done with playtime. Warren's mouth dangled open in a gaping bloody grin. His head lolled against his chest. He was no fun anymore. Time for the important stuff.  
  
"Horus, guardian of the dead. Please return to me the lives this mortal has taken. For this gift, I give you his heart."  
  
They cocked their arm back, then jammed it into Warren's chest. When their arm pulled back, they held his heart in their hand. Warm, still quivering, dripping with blood.  
  
*****  
  
Giles stopped in his tracks. Spike stood, staring over at Giles. Back to the scene in front of him. Back to Giles. Xander fell back a few steps. Had any of them seen what they thought they just saw? Tentatively, they stepped forward, toward the hideous spectacle.  
  
Spike could make it out clear as day. Willow, Red, math geek, sweet girl. Was standing there holding a beating heart in her hand. Smiling. Speaking. Chanting words. He caught words floating on the air. "heart... lives he took... bring them back."  
  
Not again.  
  
This could not be happening.  
  
*****  
  
They held the heart, speaking the sacred words. Letting the blood drip onto the sand. Watching the sand rise up and take form. Willing the forms to become animate. Snatching the spirits from the sky and shoving them back in.  
  
This was what they called a good time. Playing God. Loving every minute of it.  
  
The sand became flesh and the blood became blood, and the statues took form until two women stood before them. So much for the hard way of creating life. Nah nah, Buffy.  
  
*****  
  
"What are we going to DO?" Xander whispered nervously. "She just... she just...ripped... someone's heart out and made people out of it."  
  
"She's under the influences of extremely dark magics," Giles said quietly.  
  
"Really? You think?" Spike said, sarcastically.  
  
"How do we stop her?" Xander was panicking.  
  
I know how to stop her. But you will have to distract her so I can get close enough," Spike said to the other two men. He remembered what Tara had told him. Drain it almost dry, vampire, he thought.  
  
"Distract her? With what? Raw meat?" Xander asked, losing his marbles.  
  
"Do *something*, git. You're her closest mate. Try and talk to her." Spike snapped. "I'm going to sneak around to the other side of the school and once she is good and occupied, I will take care of the witch."  
  
"Do you plan on killing her?" the boy asked, for a moment remembering it was, after all, Willow.  
  
"I hope not," Spike asked, "But if I have to."  
  
Xander and Giles nodded. Spike crept to the opposite side of the street and took off at a run.  
  
"Distract her, hunh?" Xander said to Giles.  
  
"I suppose," Giles answered. They began to walk toward the witch.  
  
*****  
  
Random thoughts chugged through her mind as her feet struck the pavement. First and foremost, why had she never bothered to get a driver's license? Her legs moved independent of her mind now, bending, straightening, hitting the asphalt, bending, straightening pounding. Her heart was in perfect rhythm with her legs. Squeezing, relaxing, squeezing, relaxing. Over and over and over.  
  
She could hear them further behind now, jogging down the streets. There was no way to keep pace with her. Not now. Not ever. She was the Slayer. And 5 miles was a long way to run.  
  
*****  
  
Xander and Giles reached the playground fence and the bloodied witch turned her eyes toward them.  
  
"Ah, company," they hissed, swinging open the gate with the flick of a magical hand. Giles stepped through, Xander behind him. "Come to play?"  
  
"Willow," Giles pleaded, "what are you doing?"  
  
"Taking back what is mine," she answered, gesturing at the two forms now huddled on the ground.  
  
"They are not yours to barter," Giles said.  
  
"You did not say that when it was your precious, Slayer." The voice was seductive. Hypnotic. Giles had to fight himself to stay with her.  
  
"I did not approve of it then," Giles responded," and I do not now, Willow."  
  
"What do I care about your approval?" they hissed. "I have no score to settle with you, Watcher," she enunciated the last word, punctuating it with an acid smile. "I may kill you for fun, but I have not decided yet."  
  
She flicked her wrist and sent Giles flying back into the fence. His head struck the metal post with a thud and he slid to the ground unceremoniously.  
  
"You," the creature continued, "You are a whole nother story." It said walking, sauntering, toward Xander, it's feet never making contact with the ground. Xander was frozen. Where was Spike? He should have had enough time. He was afraid to look, afraid to scream. This was the only chance they had.  
  
"Willow," he gasped, falling to his knees, "Will, it's me, Xander. I know you're in there."  
  
It laughed chillingly. "This *is* me, Xander. This is what *you* helped do to me."  
  
"Me?" Xander stuttered.  
  
"You wanted her back. Always her. You helped me bring her back. If she had just stayed *dead* where she belonged, none of this would have ever happened. Tara was the price."  
  
"Will, we all made that decision. We may have been wrong, but we made it together."  
  
It was silent for a moment. Then the air filled with a cackle that split Xander's ears. "Nice try, Xander," it hissed. "You always used me. Knew I had a crush on you. But you went for Cordelia. You went for anyone but me. You got a crush on Buffy. Anyone *anyone*, but me. Why should I care what you think? What reason do I have to spare you?"  
  
"Willow..." he gasped, " Because it has been us always. Before Buffy. When we were little. Remember my birthday party and I wanted a fire truck and the house next door caught fire and I thought you did it for me... or when the clowns scared me at my other birthday party. I had a lot of bad birthdays. We were always together. Always..."  
  
A solitary tear slid down the creatures cheek. Willow had surfaced a moment and looked down at the huddled boy, with her soft normal eyes. Her sweet smile.......  
  
*****  
  
Buffy rounded the corner and could see the playground in the periphery of her view. She was still running, the sweat dripping in little rivers down her face. The rest were well behind. She was glad. What she saw was something no one else should ever have to see.  
  
Xander was on his knees in the sand. Warren was a bloody, limp pile against the steel of the jungle gym. Two forms huddled in the corner of the sand box. Willow hovered just above the sand, her eyes looking down on Xander. It was like a sick, silent photo.  
  
She saw Spike. He was vamped. He had swung silently on top of one of the playthings just behind Willow. But Willow was too distracted by Xander to notice...  
  
Buffy ran faster..  
  
*****  
  
The creature's face changed again and Xander was looking into dead, black eyes. Angry darkness. It brought it's arm up and swatted him across the cheek. He rocked back on his heels.  
  
"Bad, Xander," it hissed in its dark, sugary voice. "Should know better than to toy with me."  
  
It's arm cocked back again and Spike caught it, leaping off the back of the cold steel child's toy, wrenching the arm behind the back of the beast. He could hear the bones crack, but he had to keep moving. He lifted his head and buried his teeth in the white plain of it's neck.  
  
The world slowed. Spike's eyes opened and he could see Xander, his hands over his face, huddled in front of them. He could hear a voice. Buffy's voice. He looked up and saw her running toward him. He wanted to stop. He wanted to run to her. He had to do this.  
  
Spike continued to drink. The blood was like tar. Thick and black. It was choking him, sliding down his throat in acidic bursts. He had never tasted evil like this. It burned him with every swallow. Drained him. He could feel the hum in his ears, his skin on fire, his focus become blurred. But he had to drain it almost dry.  
  
It was the only way.  
  
*****  
  
"Spike!" Buffy was screaming at the top of her lungs. He was drinking from Willow. But it wasn't that that scared her the most. It was that he was changing. She could see the red glow around them as Willow's blood was drained. It was dissolving him. With every swallow he became less real, less solid. Buffy saw him look up at her. Saw him falter for just one second locking in on her face, then close his eyes and finish the job.  
  
*****  
  
Willow fell to the ground in a pile. Spike fell to his knees, raising his head. He saw Xander trying to get up. He saw Buffy at the fence. His body was disintegrating. The world was fading away in little pieces like blowing sand. He heard her screaming. He could see her in his head, laying next to him. The two heartbeats pattering like rain. He tried to reach out to her. But he was already gone.  
  
*****  
  
Buffy lurched forward, trying to grab his hand, but it was too late. He had just, disappeared. Gone.  
  
She fell to her knees, her head pounding, her lungs straining, her heart shattering into a million slivers. Gone.  
  
No ashes. No poof and disintegrate. Just there. And just gone.  
  
Xander stood behind her, surveying the scene. Willow was faintly breathing in a pile on the ground. She was Red again. There was another body on the ground. Lifeless. It was a dark haired man. Rack? He had been thrown clear of the rest of them. Had he even seen him there? And Warren. Warren was an unspeakable mass of bone and blood. Giles was out cold against the fence. Tara and another girl, Katrina, he thought, were huddled in the corner of the fenced in sandbox. Buffy. She wasn't supposed to be here. She was on her hands and knees in the middle of it all. Screaming. He watched her throat catch and she scrambled up, running to the grass. She threw up. He tried to move to help her. But he was stuck. It was too surreal to be anything but a nightmare. Where was Spike?  
  
nya, Clem and Dawn appeared at the fence. Anya ran for Xander. Dawn was looking wide eyed at something she should have never seen. She stood, taking it in, burning herself a memory that would scar her forever.  
  
The girl saw Buffy collapsed in the grass, shaking, crying and ran to her. Buffy was holding her stomach, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face "Buffy," Dawn whispered, grabbing her sister desperately, pulling Buffy's shaking form against her. "Buffy, where's Spike?"  
  
Buffy sobbed quietly. Dawn shook her asking again and again, louder and louder, "Where's Spike?" Buffy could not bring herself to say it. She rocked back and forth, her heart collapsing in her chest. Dawn would not stop. Wouldn't stop asking.  
  
"Dawn," Buffy choked out. Dawn shut up. "He's gone," Buffy whispered.  
  
"Gone where?"  
  
"Gone."  
  
End book one. 


End file.
